distinguished majority leader, the senator from nevada, brought up unemployment compensation. how do we help unemployed americans go to work. i can't think of an issue more important to our country. all of us have ideas about how to do this. but he brought up his idea. hasn't been considered by committee. and then when he put it on the floor, he cut off amendments, he cut off -- cut off debate and cut off votes. coming up soon will be minimum wage. how to increase family incomes in america is the foremost issue facing our country. we all have ideas about that. we're elected to deal with it. we're in a long period of unemployment. we believe the economy is bad for a variety of reasons. we on this side believe it has a big, wet blanket of rules and regulations that have been increased by the obama administration. we'd like to debate that. we'd like to talk about it. we don't believe the old idea of

a minimum wage is the solution. we're for maximum new jobs and maximum job training and learning opportunities so people can -- can get those jobs. we want the economy to grow. we should be debating that. that's why we're here. but the senator from iowa, my good friend and the distinguished chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, said, no, we won't -- we won't hear this in committee. there might be embarrassing amendments. embarrassing amendments. so, mr. president, unfortunately insofar as the way the senate functions, this year is beginning just like last year ended and republicans objected to this. now, some of the new outlets wrote down, i read some of the stories this morning that said, well, after awhile, the senate began to debate internal procedure and process. well, mr. president, sometimes

process is important. we have something called the united states constitution. it's kind of old-fashioned, has a lot of process in it. in fact, it has a checks and balances system in it that's envied by the world. there are citizens all over the world that would like to have a government that functions in the way ours has for over two centuries. process can be very important. and in this case, as the republican leader often says, process and procedure are substance, because when we're not able to talk about unemployment compensation, when we're not able to offer our ideas about how to help unemployed americans go back to work, that is substance. that's a central issue facing our country. we think we have better ideas than the idea the majority leader put on the floor and we would like to present those ideas on behalf of the people who elected us. we are not the important ones.

we're all political accidents in here, all 100 of us. we all know that. we worked pretty hard to get here and we had some luck to go along with it. and what does that give us? not just a chance to have our say but to have a say on behalf of the people of tennessee, in my case. they want me to weigh in on the big issues before our country. obamacare is one of the reasons so many people are unemployed. i'm sure that the other side doesn't want to talk about that. i wouldn't if i had voted for it. but i was in a room with the chief executive officer of a major restaurant company who told me that because of the new costs of obamacare on his large company, that they were going to start running their restaurants with 75 employees instead of 90 employees. that doesn't sound like more jobs to me. that doesn't sound like help for the unemployed americans. this is the forum in which we

debate these issues. so i suppose it might be embarrassing for our friends on the other side to debate these issues but it really shouldn't be. if they believe in them, they should want to stand up and defend the issues just as strongly as we want to say our point of view. i would success spect ther suspd number of my democratic friends who have amendments that they would like to offer on putting unemployed americans to work. and they might wonder, how did i ever get to a united states senate where i can't do that, just as someone might wonder in nashville, why did i join the grand ole opry if they won't let me sing? the majority leader's actions go to the very heart of our government. it's not about internal procedure. it's not about process. it's about the major issues facing our country. tennesseans didn't send me to washington to rubber-stamp the majority leader's ideas, not this majority leader, not any majority leader. tennesseans sent me here to represent them and to advocate their point of view and to give

them a say on obamacare, on balancing the budget, on fixing the deficit, on helping unemployed americans find jobs, on dealing with wages, on raising family incomes. that's why i'm here. that's my job. and they expect me to have a chance to have not my say but their say on the issues that face the american people. and by his actions, the majority leader is destroying the senate, which was once described as the one touch of authentic genius in the american political system. there's a new book out which i mentioned on the floor the other day. my guess, it will become the leading history of this body. it's written by the former senate historian, richard baker, and the late neil mcneil who wrote what many consider to be the best -- the best history of the house of representatives. and they do say in there that the genius that i just talked about, the authentic touch of

genius that is the senate, the major reason for that is the opportunity for extended debate. they point out, as i think any of us would, that there have been abuses with the filibuster, more delays than are necessary, that the senate doesn't work as well as it should, not just in the last few years but over a long period of time. but the fact of the matter is, in this body, which is virtually unique in the world in requiring that 60 of 100 members must agree before we cut off debate, that helps forge consensus. that helps forge consensus. as we did on the student loan agreement earlier this year. there was a good example of a good debate of different opinions on both sides of the aisle, of democrats and republicans working together. and when we finally got to 60 or 65, we got a result with the

republican house of representatives and the democratic president going along with us and it was a vib t victr the students of this country. we cut in half the interest rates they pay and took the whole argument out of a political football. the senate was created for three reasons -- to encourage a consensus. you govern a complex society with consensus not with ramrodding partisan ideas through one body or the other. we have a body for that. it's called the house of representatives. win it by one vote and the rules committee has, you know, two times as many members of the majority to one and they can pass anything they want to pass. send it over here. the tradition has been and you slow it down, you cool it off, you take a second look. the passions of the democracy, what de tocqueville called in his trip across america in the early 1800's, the great danger he saw to our country was the tyranny of the majority. he saw that as one of the two

great dangers to the american democracy. and the senate has been through all that period of time the guardian, the guardian of minority rights, the guardian of excesses are of the executive. that in our country is the president. when the founders didn't want a king so they set up this elaborate system of checks and balances, and the senate is the key to that. and what's different about the senate is the opportunity for extended debate. so we bring up a bill, one senator's idea, cut off debate, cut off amendment, cut off vot votes, that's it. that's not the way to govern our country, particularly on an issue of how do we put unemployed americans back to work. the senate's losing its capacity to do the things it was created to do in the following ways. number one, less advice and consent. on november 21, the democratic majority decided 60 votes are no longer needed to cut off debate on most presidential nominees. so try asking a nominee, will the national security agency

stop monitoring the pope? now there will be no response because the majority can ram through any nominee. the senator from nevada said, the distinguished majority leader, in 2006, he said -- i heard him, he put it in his book -- that cutting off -- allowing a majority to cut off debate would be the end of the senate." the end of the senate. apparently he changed his mind. operating without rules. the distinguished senator from michigan, senator levin, said on november 21, "a senate in which the majority can change the rules at any time is a senate without rules." it's as if the red sox finding themselves behind in the ninth inning in the world series add a couple of innings to make sure they wonment -- won. when he wrote the rules, tom at jefferson said it's not so important what the rule is but there be a rule. ignoring executive orders. while it ignores its own rules, the senate meekly watches as the

obama administration changes the health care law, suspends immigration laws and rewrites labor laws. tolerating more czars. president obama has appointed more zams than the romanofs did. in both russia and the united states, czars don't report to elected representatives. not passing appropriations bills. hopefully that's going to chan change. but the senate's repeated failure to pass appropriations bills canceled -- cancels the senate's check on the executive's power to spend. illegal recess appointments. that's being debated today in the supreme court. the majority acquiesced when president obama used his recess appointment to appoint members to the national labor relations board when the senate was not in recess. fortunately, three federal appellate courts disagreed and the supreme court will decide.

hopefully the supreme court agrees with the appellate courts. otherwise, the senate might go out for lunch and return and find that we have a new supreme court justice. now, there is blame to go around and i'm sure any of my friends on the other side who are listening would be quick to point that out. baker and mcneil in their book pointed that out. there have been abuses of the filibuster. it's true that some republicans have unduly delayed nominations and unduly delayed legislation. and that's not new. i've seen it in other years. i've pointed out on this floor how the senator from alabama, senator allen, in the 1970's and 1980's would tie the senate into knots with his knowledge of the rules. how the senator from ohio, senator metzenbaum, would sit right down there in the front row and if you wanted to pass a bill, you had to go see him. and if he didn't -- if you

didn't amend your bill to do what he wanted done, he would use senate rules to block it. so this has never been an easy place to go something done but it wasn't ever supposed to be. it was supposed to be a place where every single senator is an equal, where every senator's voice is not his or her voice but the voice of people that senator represents. it's been supposed to be a place of extended debate, where almost any amendment can be discussed for almost any length of time. and usually the clock is all that would cut the debate off. but there has been a procedure by which a consensus can cut it off and when we reach that consensus, we usually reach a result that even can pass unanimously after it's been massaged and changed and worked through and considered. i think of the legislation we

just passed on compounding pharmacies and making drugs safely -- making drugs more sa safe, 4 billion prescriptions a year that went through the committee process, through both houses, eventually passed unanimously. because we had reached a consensus. but the delays that have occurred on nominations, the cause so-called of the change in rules on november 21 was hardly a crisis. nonjudicial presidential nominees have almost never been denied their seats by a filibuster. before the november rules chan changed, two for president obama, three for president bush, two for president clinton, none before that in history. that's seven, mr. president. only seven nonjudicial president

nominees in the history of the senate had ever been denied their seats by a filibuster. now, maybe it would take awhile but that's so we can questions. and the day before the rules were changed, i looked at the executive calendar, this calendar that we have on our desk. it has every single nomination that can be brought to the floor. if i have my numbers about right, there were not many people on there. most of them -- half of them had been held up by the senator from south carolina, who is trying to get some answers on benghazi. that's happened many times in this body. senators want an answer, they do that to make the executive tell them what's going on. there were only eight, i belie believe, nominees who had been on there more than nine weeks and only 12 others who had been on more than three weeks. so there weren't very many people on the executive calendar

there. and we had changed the rules to make it easier to confirm them anyway. there were 13 district judges so the majority leader can bring them up on thursday. friday is the intervening day. monday, there could be two hours of debate, he could confirm four or five by doing it over the weekend in that way. but, no, we had to change the rules in the way that it was done. the senate doesn't need a change of rules, mr. president. it needs a change of behavior. and the current majority leader, i would respectfully suggest, could start by following the example of majority leaders robert byrd, a democrat, and howard baker, a republican, during the 1970's and 1980's. here's how they would do things. and this is the way the senate ran until five or six years ago. baker and byrd would bring legislation to the floor. usually they had gay to a committee and say to the -- usually they'd go to a committee

and say to the chair, we'll put it on the floor if you and the ranking member agree. the so you'd have two members, a republican and a rank member, standing up at the two desks. they'd put the bill on the floor that already had got an consensus in the committee. then the majority leader would ask for amendments to the bill and sometimes he would get 300. 300. then he would ask consent to cut off the offering of amendments and to consider voting on them in an orderly way, all of which was written out in the unanimous consent agreement, and of course he would get the unanimous consent to do that because everybody who wanted to offer an amendment could. and then they would go to work. they would start on mondays, and they would work into monday night and on tuesday and on wednesday. they would table many of the amendments. that doesn't take long.

ten minutes of debate, table it with 51 votes. senator byrd said in his book that when the panama canal treaty came up at a time what he was the majority leader and baker was the republican leader, that they had 200 amendments and reservations, many of them killer amendments, but he allowed every one of them, and he defeated every one of them. yobut he said if we hadn't allod them, we wouldn't have gotten the ratification of the panama canal treaty muc. the senators had their say. so the amendments were whittled away, some amendments, some voted, some dropped, soment r. some tabled. but about thursday, the majority leader said at the beginning of the week, we'll finish the bill this week -- people are ready to go home. then they'll begin to think more carefully whether their amendments are really that important or not. so they vote thursday night and they maybe vote friday and if

they have to, they vote saturday. but most of the time, they finished their work on friday. they were not afraid, those majority leaders, who allow amendments. they were not afraid to defeat amendments. i believe that if the majority leader would allow the senate to work in this way, he wouldn't have any problem on this side of the aisle weferltse with effortp bills from coming to the floor. almost all of thees of of the ep amendments from coming to the floor have to do with is not allowing senators a say. there are no votes on reforming military sexual assaults, completing yucca mountain, sanctioninsanctioning iran, othl

concerns. no votes on unemployment compensation, thousand put unemployed america to work. the senate has become a tuesda tuesday-thursday club. one reason this is tolerated is that 43 senators are in this -- in their first term, 43 senators in their first term. most of them in the majority. they've never served in the minority. they've never seen the senate function properly, the way it's functioned for most of its 200-plus year history. most importantly, those senators in their first term didn't hear senator byrd's final address when, among other things, he said that any majority leader could run the senate under the then-existing rules. i ask consent to include following my remarks an article from the "wall street journal" on last friday on this subject. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. alexander: in an important address last week, senator mcconnell, the senator from kentucky, the republican leader, described three ways to restore the senate. full committee consideration of bills; bills thor rohr will he d with robust amendments on the floor; and a decent week's work. we might work monday through friday instead of tuesday through thursday. now, mr. president, the senate could change overnight. it doesn't need a change of rules. the senator from kentucky did not say that it's always been easy to navigate the senate. the ideal regular order never has and never will be without exceptions. but what we call the regular order has become the exception rather than the rule.

i would hope that we don't wait until november or next year to restore the senate to its proper place as the authentic piece of genius in the american government, the unique body, the unique senate in the world because of the opportunity for extended debate. it could change overnight by considering bills most of the time that went through committee, most of the time having a robust amendment process and debate on those bills and vote on them, and if it took monday through friday to get that work done, then we should do it. otherwise the great issues facing our country -- what kind of health care system do we have, how do we help unemployed americans go to work, how do we improve learning opportunities in this new america where so much is decentralized and so much is on social media. these are vection siting times.

daniel burston, the former historian of the united states and of the library of congress in his wonderful books on america used to talk about verges. when america was an a verge and we've been there many times in our history, that we were more open to innovation, that we were more self-aware of where we are, that we tended to rely on each other and that we changed our country for the better. that's where we are today. we want better learning opportunities, better job training, better health care. washington is in the way of much of that, and we need to debate how to change -- how to change that. so i would hope my friend, the distinguished majority leader, will listen to what the republican leader had to say and reflect on the many years he served here. and realize that all we're saying is that we'd like to have a say on behalf of the people

who elected us on the great issues facing our country. brabring a bill through committ, bring it to the floor, let us have debate, defeat our amendments. you should be able to with a tabling motion. and then let's come to a result. i think the american people would gain much more confidence in the united states senate because it would deserve more confidence if it conducted issues iissuein that way. but this diminishing of the senate is tragic for the country with large problems to solve and whose system of checks and balances has been envied around the world. i thank the president. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be --,. the presiding officer: the senate is no in a quorum call. mr. hatch: oh, it is not in quorum call. okay. mr. president, we're currently debating yet another extension to the emergency unemployment compensation program. while there are differences of opinion in this chamber about this particular program, i think we would all agree that the fact that we are even having this

debate is unfortunate. make no mistake, mr. president, our nation continues to face difficulties when it comes to job growth, labor force participation, and long-term unemployment, as has been the case throughout the obama administration. under this administration, it has been harder to find a job than at any other point in our nation's recent history. let's be clear about something. the plight of the long-term unemployed is not the major problem facing america today. it is instead just a simple tom -- it is i instead just a sympt. our government hasn't done enough to promote economic growth in this country. far too often our government has been interfered in ways that have stunted growth and prevented a robust recovery from taking place. five years into his presidency, it is clear that president obama does not have a plan to address

these problems. sure, he -- surely he has a list of ways that he'd like to expand the government and redistribute income but nothing resembling a plan. he has a political plan of attack and this debate over unemployment inurns is part of attack plan. over the last five years we have seen a series of big-government "solutions" that have all failed to produce real economic results. the administration pushed through the supposedly temporary stimulus which ended up being little more than a laundry list of long-time democratic party policy priorities that had little or nothing to do with actually stimulating the economy. the administration also decided to devote its attention to expanding the alphabet soup of financial regulators while failing to address factors that were at the heart of the recent financial crisis.

lacking ideas of its own, the obama administration created and turned to a jobs council to try to understand private job creation, only to later dissolve the council while not having instituted any meaningful policies to create jobs. the largest and most intrusive big-government edict we received from the administration and its allies in congress is, of course, obamacare. on a daily basis, the american people continue to suffer from the impact of this very misguided law. people have lost their jobs, or they have been moved into part-time work, people have been forced off their health care plans, people have been forced under fear of penalty to purchase insurance coverage that they don't want or need, people have had their private and financial information put at risk thanks to the lack of security in the obamacare exchanges, and perhaps worst of

all people have seen the cost of their health care go up across the board. obamacare is the worst in a series of bad economic policies we've seen since this president came into office. and the as a result speak for themselves. at the beginning of a new year, we see very clearly what the president and his democratic allies in congress plan to do about all of this, and the answer is nothing. instead of working with us to enact projob and progrowth policies, they are picking fights with republicans on issues like unemployment insurance. and instead of trying to root out the causes of our economic problems they are giving speeches, vilifying anyone who might have a different view on these issues. like i said, president obama and the senate democrats have no economic plan. only a political plan of attack. let's consider this debate on unemployment compensation

insurance for a moment. i think there are many who would question why we didn't have this debate on extending long term unemployment benefits sooner. democrats knew federal long term unemployment benefits were scheduled to expire at the end of 2013, yet they did nothing to try to extend them before now. contrary to what some of my colleagues on the other side seem to believe, republicans do not run the senate. we don't control the committees. we don't run things here on the floor. and as we're seeing in the current debate over unemployment benefits, we don't even get a chance to offer amendments to many major pieces of legislation. why is that? why is it that the greatest deliberative body in the world can no longer offer amendments? it comes down to one thing. the democrat leadership, they're afraid that we might bring up amendments that are difficult for democrats to vote on. well, join the crowd. that's always been the case around here before this current

leadership took over. every leader has tried to protect their side, but this has gone to the side of ridiculousness and the denigration of the senate itself. the democrats could have offered an extension of federal unemployment benefits at any time before they expired in 2013. we could have debated the merits of the emergency unemployment compensation program, discussed alternatives and perhaps even come up with a bipartisan compromise to help the long-term unemployed. we could even have done that through regular order and using the committee process. but instead democrats ignored the program for an entire year and in the very last days of the last congressional session and after we had adjourned for the year, we finally started hearing about the desperate need to protect the long-term unemployed about how it was the highest priority for the president and democrats in congress to extend these benefits and about those

villainous republicans standing in the way. there are really only two conclusions to draw from this. mr. president, either the democrats forgot about unemployment benefits until the end of the year or they calculated it was better suit ford their political attack plan to let them expire and then debate an extension afterward. i think it's pretty clear which conclusion is the correct one especially since they control the senate and they control the committees. they could have done just about anything they wanted to. so here we are debating another extension of the e.u.c. program, unemployment compensation program. we may may as well be debating e merits of a band-aid on a bone bone -- broken arm. however since the democrats opted to put this matter off until we were actually beyond the last minute, we have not

enacted or even really debated any serious alternatives to federal unemployment benefits, and we're left with just another take-it-or leave it proposition from the majority leader. that's what the majority leader seems to be saying to us. in fact, that is what he is saying to us in this debate. take it or leave it. now why would he do that? apparently no republicans, not even the ones who supported cloture on the motion to proceed, will get an opportunity to offer amendments. the only amendment we'll be voting on is the so-called compromise amendment the majority leader offered last thursday. of course the amendment is not a compromise at all. it's nothing of the sort. just like the underlying bill, it would add significantly to the deficit. the supposed pay-fors in the amendment wouldn't even kick in until the normal ten-year budget window.

indeed the democratic whip in the house has voiced concern about using so-called savings from extending sequester outside of the ten-year window saying -- quote -- "frankly, if you adopt that logic, why don't we extend it to 2054 and find everything we want to do?" that's a dream some democrats have, but fortunately there may be some people on the other side who realize that this is a charade. in short, mr. president, the amendment we'll be voting on this afternoon, if we do, is a gimmick, designed solely to allow the majority to claim that they're willing to pay for extending unemployment benefits. nothing more, nothing less. once again, this is apparently the only amendment we'll get a chance to vote on when it comes to extending the emergency employment compensation program which is par for the course under the current senate majority. mr. president, it's pretty clear what my colleagues in the

majority want to do. contrary to their claims, passing this legislation and extending unemployment benefits, it's not the highest priority. their highest priority is the use the long-term unemployment as pawns in their political attacks on republicans who support a different approach, one that's paid for, fairly paid for, honestly paid for and understandably paid for. if i'm wrong and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are serious about wanting to extend this program, why would they not allow for votes on republican amendments or even democrat amendments? there are some complaints on the democrat side. even we, the democrats, they're saying, don't have the privilege of bringing up amendments. and as we continue on here, the committees are a waste of time under the way the senate is currently being run because everything is run right out of the leader's office.

republicans have offered a number of amendments to the underlying legislation. why not allow them to come up for a vote? are they afraid we might pass republican amendments when they have 55 democrats in the senate? if it's the majority leader's claim, none of our ideas are serious enough to warrant consideration, why not bring them up and let democrats who once again have a majority here in the senate vote them down? that could have been done. the problem is they know some of these amendments are worthwhile, worthy amendments that might pass. or might cause some heartburn to some on both sides maybe. well, i'm certainly used to heartburn over the years, i'll tell you that. republicans have offered a number of amendments to the underlying legislation. why not allow them to come up for a vote? if it's the majority leader -- if as the majority leader has

claimed none of the ideas are serious enough to warrant consideration, why not allow them to be brought up, limit the time for the debate, let the democrats, who once again have a majority in the senate, vote them down? the only conclusion that we can draw is that they're afraid that if we held a vote, some of our amendments might actually pass, which would distract from the political message they want to send with this debate on the floor. the minority leader and i have offered such an amendment, one that i believe would actually pass if it were to receive a vote. i'd like to just -- and something that makes a lot more sense than what's going on here over the last number of days, weeks maybe. i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about our amendment, the mcconnell-hatch amendment. the mcconnell-hatch amendment would, if enacted, extend the emergency unemployment compensation program for a full year, taking unemployment

benefits out of the 2014 political equation entirely. i would think that my colleagues on the other side would jump at that kind of opportunity. in addition to this fix on the unemployment insurance issue, the mcconnell-hatch amendment would fix the military pension problems created under the recent budget agreement which has caused so much angst and heartburn among our military and among those who are serving our country in that matter. there is bipartisan support for this endeavor, and i believe we can fix it here and now. best of all, unlike the underlying bill and the, quote unquote, compromise offered at the end of last week, the mcconnell-hatch amendment is fully paid for within the normal ten-year budget window. in fact, it reduces the deficit by more than $1 billion over ten years and does it in a fair, honest way. one way that it pays for the extension is to close the loophole in the law that allows people to claim both

unemployment insurance and social security disability insurance. the majority leader claims that he wants to do this, but our amendment does it in a much more efficient way, something that makes economic sense. however, the primary pay-for in our amendment which once again allows us to extend unemployment benefits for a full year and fix the military pensions issue is a one-year delay in the obamacare individual mandate. a one-year delay. that's it. i know some of my friends on the other side, including the distinguished majority leader, have already deemed this proposal controversial. but it shouldn't be. the problems with the implementation of obamacare have been fully cataloged at length here on the floor and elsewhere. no one in their right mind would argue that the implementation is going well. nobody. it's not going well.

give them a chance to amend this bill over the next year, although i don't think you can amend the bill but at least give them a chance to. and sooner or later they're going to have to do it anyway so why don't they give up? members of both parties have come out in support of delaying the individual mandate. they know it is a disaster. regardless of where you stand on obamacare, if you support it or if you, like me, want to see it repealed, delaying the mandate is a bipartisan idea, and it just makes sense. what are they afraid of? with a law this unpopular and the rollout going this badly, i would think many of my friends on the other side of the aisle would get on board with a one-year delay. once again such a delay would allow to us pay for a less politicized extension of federal unemployment benefits as well as allow to us fix our military

pension programs -- problems. excuse me. it's a win-win proposition. it's hard for me to understand why they won't do this. like i said, i know that the senate democratic leadership despises this idea. they have already come to the floor and mischaracterized it on a number of occasions. however, i believe that if this approach, the one-year extension of unemployment benefits and the military pension fix paid for primarily by a one-year delay in the individual mandate were brought to a vote here in the senate, members of both parties would support it. and it would be a bipartisan approach to these things that would, i think, be worthwhile. the same can be said for any number of amendments my colleagues have offered. i may be wrong about that, but i don't think i am. if i am wrong, what's the harm in having a vote on the mcconnell-hatch amendment? what's the harm in having a vote on any of the amendments republicans have offered? one of my colleagues on the

other side of the aisle -- what are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle afraid of? we've been putting up with this now for too long a time. i remember the senate when both sides worked all the time together. they battled even though they differed. they allowed amendments to come up even though sometimes it would cause some heartburn to people on one side or the other. who would get it, because this is a legislative body of freedom, which it has devolved in a way that is not freedom. what's the harm in having a vote on any of the amendments? or let's have a limited number of amendments. not two, three or four. this is an important bill. let's have some amendments that even republicans can offer. there are some democrat amendments too and i suppose they might have some heartburn from republicans. well, so what. what are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle afraid

of? once again, mr. president, i don't think that the senate democratic leadership is worried that i'm wrong about some democrats supporting the mcconnell-hatch amendment. they're worried that i might be right. that's why my amendment won't receive a vote. that's why as of right now, it appears that no republican amendments will receive votes. unless it happens among the few that were willing to support the first vote on this. and even then, i doubt that they'll have any votes, but they may. like i said, it seems like democrats are far more worried about sending a political message about unemployment insurance than they are with actually passing an extension. that's unfortunate and it's truly shameful. however, this debate unfolds, one thing is clear, the approach the president is taking isn't working. the economic approach the

president is taking isn't working. the tax approach the president is taking is not working. the so-called -- quote -- "affordable care act" approach the president is taking is fraught with problems that could be solved if the senate was allowed to really work the way the senate always has in the past. the present and the senate democratic leadership are taking isn't working. we're not creating jobs at a time when americans need them. americans need and we're not -- they need jobs and we're not generating the type of growth that will g.w. for job creation in the near future. as far as i can see, we have two choices -- we can either have these same fights over and over

again or we can work together to fix the real underlying problems facing our country instead of focusing on the symptoms and always playing a ridiculous game of politics. i hope that we will choose to work together, but if the tactics we are seeing thus far on unemployment insurance are any indication, i think i'm likely to wind up quite disappointed. i am concerned about the united states senate. i'm concerned about some of the really power-striking pose that is have been going on around here that do not allow the senate to work its will, do not allow for real bipartisanship, do not allow for bringing us together, do not allow for decency on both sides.

just plain power-seeking approaches that really do not deserve praise. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: thank you, mr. president. i rise today in support of the emergency unemployment compensation extension act. i am glad that a three-month extension of unemployment insurance for millions in minnesota and across the country was able to clear its first hurdle in the senate, but our of course, of course, is not finished. i'm here today to urge my colleagues in the senate and the house to pass an tension to renew these critical benefits so that hard-pressed families in minnesota and across our nation can keep their heads above water while they search for work.

as i travel around minnesota, i have heard from a lot of minnesotans who want to work. hi a roundtable conference this weekend, on friday. we had three women and we had some work force professionals, and these women are looking hard, they have been looking, they are part of the long-term unemployed. these were women who were working -- one was in her 40's with two kids, one little kid, a 3-year-old child, a single mom. one was in her 50's and one about my age, in her early 60's. while they are looking for jobs -- we had a professional there who said one of the hardest jobs is looking for a job. and they need the unemployment insurance to stay in their homes

and put food on the table for their families. in the wake of the worst recession since the great depression, too many people had good jobs and worked their entire life, and all these women had worked their entire lives at 20, 30, 40-year careers. and now they are out of work and they remain out of work. unemployment remains high, and the long-term unemployment rate among workers who have been looking for work for at least six months has weighed down our economy. today there are four million americans, 37% of the unemployment who have been out of work more than six months. this is the worst long-term unemployment since the great recession. and that's why we need to extend the emergency unemployment

compensation. these workers, the millions throughout the country, are worried they will lose the ability to pay for a roof over their heads and put food on the table for their families, for their children. for most americans, state-funded unemployment insurance runs out after 26 weeks, and yet the average unemployment spell now lasts over two and a half months longer. emergency unemployment benefits provide up to an additional 47 additional weeks of unemployment insurance for those americans who need it while they are looking for a job. when i talk about high long-term unemployment, these women, every one of them i talked to had been -- were working very hard every day.

one woman described it as saying i'm looking 24 hours a day. i have my smartphone and i'm hoping 24 hours a day that i get something, a response, an interview. right now we have three people looking for every job opening, but that doesn't mean that when you apply for a job that there are only two other people looking. these women were telling me every time they apply for a job, there are several hundred people, and very often they will apply for a job that the company announces and the company will hire someone from inside the company, which is great for that -- that person, but this is is -- this is not about people

waiting for their unemployment to run out and then look for a job. that's not what it's about. after christmas, 1.3 million americans lost their jobs and are looking for work, including 8,500 minnesotans lost this critical lifeline of unemployment compensation. and remember these women i'm talking about, they paid in. i'm talking about 20 years working, 30 years working, 40 years working in the workplace. and if we don't renew these benefits over the next year, those benefits will run out for another three million people, including 65,000-plus minnesotans. while minnesota has been fortunate to have a lower

unemployment rate than other states, i believe that the 65,000 minnesotans who will lose benefits without a -- an extension deserve our support as they are looking for work. congress has never allowed special extended unemployment benefits to expire when the long-term unemployment rate is as high as it is today. in fact, at 2.5%, the long-term unemployment rate is nearly double the level when previous emergency benefits were allowed to expire. and the current notre dame rate of 6.7% is far above nearly all previous rates seen at expiration, and it is 1.1% higher than when president george w. bush signed the current round of benefits into law. as i said, on friday, i met with several unemployed minnesotans, one of whom was already --

actually, two out of the three were affected by the -- our not extending emergency unemployment insurance. i also want to share their stories but also stories of people who have written in, minnesotans who have reached out to me about how failing to extend unemployment insurance will affect them. john from curbing, -- cushing, minnesota, wrote me in december -- quote -- "i am a 58-year-old sales and marketing professional that was laid off due to a force reduction and have been employed for a year -- unemployed for a year. i have not been able to find even part-time work. i have exhausted my severance package and most of my liquid savings just to cover financial obligations and essentials such as food and utilities. additionally, i do not have any

health care coverage as my income has been limited to unemployment compensation. now that the federal extension is about to expire, beginning next week, i will have zero income and no job offer pending. i would appreciate your support in doing what you can to reinstate federal unemployment extension in minnesota -- the federal unemployment extension in minnesota. as for me personally, it is of extremely and i would expect many others around the country may also be in such dire straits. you know, almost half -- i think -- i believe it's actually a majority of americans sometime in their life hit a rough patch, and our job is to be there for them. debbie from wapier lake wrote -- quote -- "there are many of us out here who will run out of benefits next year and are still unable to find a decent job. i have been out of work over

four months and i'm spending at least five or six hours a day every day looking for a job. while this may not seem that long, i am already concerned about my state unemployment running out and having nothing. the people that actually work are the ones that help -- spend money help the economy. she is right. we know from c.b.o. these people that have unemployment insurance spend the money and it goes immediately out in the economy, and actually c.b.o. says that this will sustain about 200,000 additional jobs. if we don't do this, we will create 200,000 less jobs over the next year. and from eden prairie -- i met with ann on friday. she wrote me -- "i have unfortunately been unemployed since being downsized mr. a

small consulting organization in april of 2013. i have been extremely active in my job search." boy, has she, i will tell you. all these -- all these women were upgrading their skills. some of them had -- had gone back to school to upgrade their skills and are still not being successful in finding work. i have been extremely active in my job search but have regrettably not found employment. my minnesota unemployment insurance ran out last week. i applied for federal emergency unemployment compensation just this past week. i understand it's going to expire at the end of the month. she wrote me this in december. i ask you to please ask yourself what you would do to provide for your family. i have a 9-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. i am the sole provider for my family. i volunteer extensively at the school and elsewhere in the

community. she is a volunteer. she does that, but she also volunteers looking for a job. she is networking in her volunteer work. she is volunteering for kid' school, for 9-year-old school. the 3-year-old, she told me that she has 3-year-old with a preschool five days a week, then four days, then three days, then two days. now one day a week. and how hard is it to look for a job when you have a 3-year-old. she says i am not looking for a handout, nor do i believe that staying on unemployment insurance is in my best interests. but she says it will at least allow me to make my mortgage payment, unquote.

doug from bloomington wrote that he and his family will lose their home if we allow benefits to expire. quote -- "i unfortunately lost my job due to the economy last march. each position that i apply for has at least 500 candidates applying for the same position. if the federal unemployment extension is not approved, my family and i will be homeless within a month. i have even tried to apply for temporary positions, he says in quotes. however, they always reply that i am overall qualified." we talked about this. in this roundtable. we also had professionals there who are professional work force people and they are counselors. these people are working it. they can't -- we -- i had a woman in her 50's who said they won't take me at mcdonald's. because they figure if i get some other job, i'll leave. it costs them to train.

it really troubles me that those who have worked and contributed to our society the longest -- i'm saying 20, 30, 40 years, have been particularly hit hard by long-term unemployment. in other words, older workers who lose their jobs have experienced longer periods of unemployment than younger workers. part of that is age discrimination, that age discrimination has made it more difficult for older workers to bounce back when they lose their job. according to aarp, 30% of older workers reported they have experienced or know someone who has experienced age discrimination in the past four years. this was the experience of all three of the women i talked to. extending unemployment insurance isn't just the right thing to do, to help our fellow americans who are out of work and searching for a job, it's

also the smart thing to do for our economy. as i said in 2011 the congressional budget office stated aid to the unemployed is among the policies with -- quote -- "the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost"-- unquote. c.b.o. estimates that extending benefits through 2014 will help spanned the economy and -- expand the economy and create an additional 200,000 jobs. the council of economic advisors estimates the economy will generate 240,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2014. we know that unemployment benefits work. the census bureau estimates that unemployment benefits kept 2.5 million people who are trying to stay in the work force out of poverty. in 2012 alone and have kept over 11 million unemployed workers

out of poverty since 2008. ciewntdless local businesses feel the positive effects when the unemployed are able to keep buying their basic necessities, food, utilities, gas. so you can drive to look for a job. unemployment insurance isn't the only thing we should be doing to help the unemployed either. there are lots of things we can and should be doing. there are more than three million jobs in this country that could be filled today if there were workers who had the right skills. with too many americans unemployed we have to find a way to fill those jobs, to train those workers. we should be helping workers get the training they need to fill the high-tech jobs that are growing in minnesota and across the country, in maine, in

alabama. every senator i talk to in this chamber, i talk about the skills gap, manufacturing returning to this country. but we don't have the skilled workers at a time with such high long-term unemployment. we need to be training a work force for the 21st century, and sometimes these are -- this is advanced manufacturing. sometimes this training takes two years. we need to do it. we should be helping connect these people to educational programs that link them with employers and that's why i've introduced the community college to career fund act, under this program businesses and community colleges would apply for dwrants base -- grants based on how many jobs that partnership would create, the value of those jobs to those hired to the community and how much skin the businesses

have in the game. there's a lot that we should be doing to create jobs. we should be addressing our infrastructure deficit. you know, when you leave -- when you don't repair infrastructure, when you don't create new infrastructure, that's the deficit, too. we need to get people into jobs that are -- that we need to be doing. but failing to extend emergency unemployment doesn't make sense. we shouldn't be punishing people like john and debbie and ann and doug who are looking for work and can't find jobs. we shouldn't be pulling the rug out from under them and millions of others who support the small businesses and local retailers in our cities and our towns. extending these benefits are

something we should do now to jump-start, to continue this recovery. we shouldn't -- shouldn't stop there at all. i will continue to press this congress to continue to work to create jobs through invests in infrastructure and innovation in education so that the unemployed can get back to work in good jobs that sustain long-term economic growth. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor. mr. president, i'm sorry. i have one unanimous consent request for a committee to meet during today's session of the senate. it has the approval of both the majority and minority leaders, i ask unanimous consent that this request be agreed to and that this request be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: i yield the floor.

mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: this nation is facing a debt crisis, that's fully understood by the american people and experts all over, our total debt is now in excess of $17 trillion. the budget control act of 2011 was an important step in reining in some of our spending. it reduced the growth of spending from 2012 through 2022 by $2.1 trillion. that was the agreement. we raised the debt ceiling by by $2.1 trillion but we promised the american people we would restrain spending over the next decade by that amount. the baseline of spending as calculated by our congressional budget office that does that work for us was expected to see spending increase by $10 trillion over the next ten years, increase by that much.

the budget control act, which included the sequester, was to limit that growth to $8 trillion. not really a cut at all. so it would be $8 trillion increase in spending, not $10 trillion. i wanted to reduce the growth of spending more than that but the b.c.a. levels did provide a cap on spending that was approved by president obama, passed by both houses of congress, and signed into law by president obama. this year, fiscal year 2014 was the toughest year in terms of being able to meet the goals of the b.c.a. of the 10, and therefore we blinked, i would say. there arose the murray-ryan bipartisan legislation written not with our budget committee members but by these two leaders, and they agreed that we would spend $64 billion more

than the b.c.a. allowed. this was a bitter pill for me, i have to say. i warned that this was the first real violation of the budget control act spending limits and i sought some other alternatives but that didn't happen. the legislation passed and it spent -- and agreed to spend more money but it had a good point. it reaffirmed that this was all that would be spent above the b.c.a. levels. it said we've got a tight time now, if you'll increase spending for two years perks we will stay fundamentally with the b.c.a. levels and that was another promise, wasn't it? we promised in 2011 to limit our spending, we come back in 2013 in december and we say we can't live with our promises any longer and we are making these alterations but we're going to stick with this. we're going to stay with this promise. if you'll just give us this $64

billion extra to spend, we'll not spend any more than that over the next several years. it also left the b.c.a. caps in place for the next seven years. unemployment compensation is a mandatory spending entitlement spending program that's before us now that congress would like to spend more on than current law allows. of course, it appears that promises made in washington are made to be broken. our colleagues on the democratic side of the aisle see agreements like ryan-murray, i sometimes think, as just steps to advance the agenda, just to further the revolution, not something that should be honored. less than six months after this act passed, president obama proposed a budget that would spend $1 trillion more than agreed to in the b. cramplet, a

breathtaking violation of plain law that he had signed just six months later. his plan fortunately was rejected, but he filed the same new budget in fiscal year 2013 with a trillion dollars more in spending. and all our senate democratic colleagues voted for the budget that senator murray moved out of committee, and it would spend a trillion dollars more than the b.c.a. limits. okay, so they said we couldn't live with that, we needed to spend more. and that's how the ryan-murray agreement came about. okay, we'll spend some more and we'll use this to pay for, and we'll do all this and most of it, too much of it, frankly, gimmickry, and it passed, it was going to fix the financial

pressure we were under. it was going to fix the tight year or two that we have here, the toughest year or two in the budget. but now, just four weeks after that passed in december, those tough negotiations and secret talks that concluded, we are with the first bill in this congress on the floor, we have an unemployment insurance extension that totally busts those levels. so now we're told we don't have to abide by those legal caps. just spend more money now. now with no corresponding cuts or reductions as required anywhere to pay for it, house speaker nancy pelosi said there's no place left to cut. well, there are places left to cut. and we know we have a lot of

people hurting and unemployed today. and some sort of compensation is legitimate, but this idea that we can just waltz in here because there's a need in the country that we believe should be fulfilled and we can just borrow the money and spend for it is not good. it's why this nation has $17 trillion in debt. and people are angry with washington. and i would say to my colleagues, why shouldn't they be angry? didn't we promise to stay with the b.c.a. limits? didn't we promise after the ryan-murray agreement to spend more, that we would stay there? didn't we agree with that? and here we are, the first bill of this session just a few weeks after that passed, ryan murray, the ink hardly dry, and we're demanding now a huge

new deficit spending program. make no mistake ladies and gentlemen. we are in deficit. any new spending over the budget control act entails more borrowing. that's just the way it works. now, section 11 of h.j. res. 59, the ryan-murray agreement, spending agreement, says this -- quote -- "section 111-a, fiscal year 2014, for the purpose of enforcing the congressional budget act of 1974 for fiscal year 2014 and for enforcing in the senate budgetary points of order, the allocations, aggregates and levels for provided for in subsection b shall apply." what are those levels, you might ask. this is what it says. section 111-b-2, committee

allocations for fiscal year 2014, fiscal year 2014 through 2018 and fiscal year 2014 through 2023, consistent with the may, 2013 baseline of the congressional budget office. the c.b.o. baseline assumes extended unemployment benefits that we've been extending beyond any historical pattern will expire as the law requires because that's what congress wrote into law. the ink is barely dry on the december agreement and we're already being pushed to violate it. therefore,if we extend unemployment insurance benefits, it will cost us, will it not? ryan-murray would assume choices that would be -- assumed that choices would be made between competing expenditure values, and that the net spending would

not increase above the baseline. that out of the $3.7 trillion we spend a year, we can find the $26 billion necessary, according to senator reid's proposal or other proposals might be less, to fund unemployment insurance. we'd find that somewhere, or we wouldn't do it. the reid amendment that's before us includes a provision that would extend the budget control act sequester for one year to 2024. the budget control act sequester ends in 2024 and the budget control act -- so he just proposes that, well, let's assume it continues and then we can save money ten years from now, really 11 or 12 years from now and that we can pay for that spending program today.

isn't that nice? i'm asthiemed see tha ashamed te senate's favor budget gimmick -- spend now and pay letter -- lat- devolved into something almost way more sinister. spent now and pay way, way, way later. 10 years, we're not honoring the spending limits we agreed to in december. and now we're promising if we'll just allow us to spend this money, we're going to cut mone money -- spending 11 years from now. there will be five different house elections, five different senate elections, 10 different budgets written, 10 different appropriations bills written between now and then. the american people know better than that. we're not adhering to the agreements we made while the ink is still wet. we promise to save money out there -- it's really outrageous.

mr. sessions: well, if this is a legitimate of offset, why don'te just do it for one year? we could extend the budget sequester two years, mr. chairman. 24, 25. that would save enough money, we could give every federal employee a raise, wouldn't cost a dime t. will all be paid for, wouldn't it? or how about why don't we just expend it through years, maybe to 2027, and then we could double the highway bill. we'd like to spend more money on highways. i would. i'd like to increase that. we could just pretend that we're going to extend these limits out there in 13, 14 years from now and that will just pay for it. this is -- this kind of gimmickry, this mount bankery is how a nation goes broke. that's what we've been doing year after year, violating even our own generous spending limi limits, pretending that we're cutting spending when we are

just reducing the growth from $8 -- $10 trillion to $8 trillion. and you would think that the country is going to sink into the very ocean if we reduce the growth of spending from $10 trillion to $8 trillion. another thing that's in the bill, one of the most successful parts of the 1996 welfare reform law were work requirements for healthy, working-age adults without children. the work requirements encouraged millions to improve their lives by working, going to school, and engaging in job-training programs. however, this administration has granted states the ability to suspend the food stamp's work requirements since 2012, part of the extension plan of -- emergency plans. unemployment compensation program. if the emergency unemployment program is extended again even for one week, the administration will have the authority to waive the work requirements for about

40 states for 2015. in other words, the food stamp work requirement will be suspended. he's going to do that if this bill passes. it will give him the power to do that. and that's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars too. it's an unexpected, unappreciated thing, colleagues, that's in -- in the bill. so after analyzing the reid amendment and the underlying bill that's before us, we have consulted with senator murray's staff. she is the democratic chair of the budget committee and a very honorable person and proposed that this proposal violates the budget agreement, the ryan-murray law, fundamentally. and that several points of order apply against the reid amendme amendment. it violates the senate pay-as-you-go requirement. it increases the deficit by more than $10 billion inside the

10-year budget window without offsets to pay for the costs. it spends way more above what the senate finance committee is allowed to under the spending deal we enforced, and it violates the budget committee's own jurisdiction. finally, colleagues, the amendment isn't paid for inside the budget window as the budget act requires. instead, it tries to count savings 11 years out. that's not allowed under the budget act. when i raised these points of order, i would expect that sooner or later the majority will move to waive all budget points of order against the amendment and perhaps all budget points of order against the bill itself. any motion to waive, though, if leader reid moves to waive, ignore, spend above the law's budget limits, it requires 60 votes. by the way, let me be clear. senator murray and her staff have acknowledged that this does

violate the budget act and that a budget point of order, if i raise it or others raise it, would be well taken and it would take 60 votes to break it. so, colleagues, the question will soon be on us. in the face of pressing need, we all believe that should be addressed, will 60 of us agree that the best way forward is to turn our backs on the murray-ryan spending deal that congress passed just four weeks ago? and president obama signed just two weeks ago? or will enough of us agree that the best way forward to help unemployed and pay for that assistance with other savings in the federal budget so we don't have to blow a hole in our budget agreement and our children and grandchildren will be stuck with paying the price? so another point. by opposing the new spending

arrangement the government just entered into, by defending it against even more spending, we can also accomplish one other thing -- put aside the gag rule on the amendments enforced by the majority leader. we've talked a lot about it. we need to be able to offer amendments and have debate on how to make this bill better. if the majority makes a successful motion to waive the budget act points of order, it protects the gag rule, the blocking of amendments, the filling of the tree. members need to have a chance to offer amendments to this legislation so improvements can be made, so we can pay for what is needed to be spent. and an actual bipartisan bill can emerge from the senate. so, mr. president, and colleagues, this is a question before us now. do we adhere to the spending

limits congress passed, promised less than a month ago? or do we break the ryan-murray limits like we broke the budget control act limits in the -- in the -- will we do so in the first bill that comes before the congress this year? this is not a vote on unemployment benefits. when i'm able to make the budget point of order -- and i plan to do so -- it's not about unemployment benefits when we vote on the budget point of order. it's a vote on whether we uphold the spending limits we agreed to or whether we violate those limits in the first spending bill since this congress took session this year. this is about the integrity of this institution. in 2011, we passed the budget control act and promised to spend a certain amount of money and that amount only.

but when the spending discipline proved too tough, congress has backed down and agreed to a new, looser spending limits under ryan-murray. that was just a few weeks ago before -- just before christmas. and now here we are on the first spending bill of the year and our democratic majority is proposing to bust the ryan-murray spending limits right out of the chute. how could any voter trust the senate if this body votes today to break these just new limits less than a month old? a vote to uphold budget rules today is simply a vote to say that the bill should be paid f for, whatever we decide to do, pay for it. there are many, many ideas for doing so. congress could easily offset these funds if the congressional majority leader here in the senate would allow us to propose

amendments which he hasn't done. so let's uphold the rules of our institution, enforce our budget rules and find a way to pay for the legislation, pay for what we intend to spend above the limit and let's keep our promises to the american people. so i hope that my colleagues who voted for the ryan-murray bill will not renege now. if you break this agreement today, why should any taxpayer trust your promises, colleagues, in the future? i hope all of us no matter on policy disagreements can agree to uphold senate rules. i hope we can agree to abide by the promises we made to the american people, and i hope we can agree that financial integrity is more important than partisan interest. i would thank the chair and yield the floor. mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, while my colleague from alabama is still here, i want to talk about

a certain national championship game that just occurred. but before i do, i want to say that a lot of the expressions of frustration that my colleague has expressed, frustrations that are shared by this senator. not the specifics but the fact that the senate is not working like it should. indeed, the congress is not working like it should. but i would remind anyone that is listening to these words the old adage, it takes two to tango. and if anything's going to get

done, there's going to have to be a meeting of the minds between the parties, recognizing that you can't have it all one way and your way. now, there are legitimate grievances in what has led to the dysfunction of the united states congress and we can speak here today with regard to the senate. authorization committees that have been so important in the history of this country and the functioning of the congress at times are irrelevant that they have not over -- not only been overtaken but the appropriations process has been overtaken as well. when you cobble together these huge appropriations bills that

are nothing but a continuation of the previous year's appropriations with some tweaks, where is the input of the members? in the past, it's been mount oh lump umountolympus that has comr at the last minute in an emergency situation to cobble something together keep the government functioning. now, that's not rational decision making, it's not what we call around here as regular order. it certainly isn't the authorization of bills, and it certainly isn't the appropriations of the government according to that authorization for appropriations. so as we get on down the line, i want to continue to work with my colleague, who i have had the pleasure, the privilege of working with as we have worked on very thorny issues in the

past on the strategic subcommittee on armed services, on national missile defense, and the senator and this senator have been able to come together in agreement on those thorny issues years ago. but times have changed and this place is not functioning. and it's going to take an extra special effort on both sides of that aisle that has become too big of a dividing line in our ability to get things done. and so i would say that i want to empathize with the senator's frustration and let him know that there is frustration on this senator's part as well. now, i'm going to take advantage of the fact that the senator from alabama is here because we are bringing forth today a resolution that will pass by

unanimous consent, if the senators from alabama will so agree, but the fact is that it was a marvelous national championship game. and whichever won, it was obvious that one was going to be number 1 and the other one, as it turned out, was going to be number 2, as it should have been, in the entire national collegiate football program. and so, i want to tell the senator how much i admire his university, auburn university, and that it is my privilege to speak on behalf of the florida state university, and it's no

question. you knew that whoever ended up with the score by the end of the game, that they were the national championship team, and lo and behold, did that score go back and forth. and with a little over a minute left, florida state led by their heisman trophy winner quarterback took it down the entire length of the field. it was a sight to behold, and so i just wanted to say those words while the senator from alabama was here. mr. sessions: mr. president, would the senator yield for a question? mr. nelson: i would yield. mr. sessions: i think it is a remarkable thing, senator nels nelson. you know, some people think our young people aren't willing to work, they're not willing to discipline themselves. but those two teams played their hearts out, and they didn't get their working edict a few weeks ago. they worked all year in the weight rooms, in studying, in

preparing themselves to reach this high level of excellence and to deliver a thrilling game for us all. florida state is a tear rick te, terrific team. i think everybody knew auburn is going to have to be really up to speed to be able to compete, and they were able to. and so you're right. and i am pleased and note that our heisman trophy winner this year is a native of alabama. we'll claim credit for that, too. and auburn drove down the field on that last drive, having to score to win the game, and just pounded away, and trey mason scored the touchdown. but you ar you are a heisman try winning team. it was just spectacular. you well-deserve the right to

recognize them by resolution, and i certainly won won't objec. and i would add one more thing. had auburn won, it would have been the sixth consecutive year that auburn or alabama had won the national chafn onship, and we would have liked to have seen that havmen happen. but congratulations to florida state. they deserved to win and they played well-enough to win and did win. mr. nelson: now this senator, mr. president, is wearing a gold tie and i notice the senator from alabama is wearing a crimson tierks but his allegiance is orange and blue, i take it? mr. sessions: did i have my auburn tie on the day of the game. but i love alabama. it's a fabulous program, and i spent three years there and

remain a big fan. i'm maybe one of the few people in the state that really truly has a divided allegiance about who to be for. both are superuniversities. and i would say, senator nelson, as i've shared with you, i am a he really impressed with the university of florida where my grandson had some great surgery done there, by one of the finest doctor in the world, i believe, because the condition he had -- and i he's done so well. the and i know both of us are proud of the great institutions in our state. thank you. mr. nelson: mr. president, this resolution awaits unanimous consent by the senate, which i assume will occur today. we tried it for last thursday night before the senate adjourned, but i think that all of the things have been cleared, and the resolution will

commemorate the fact that florida state is now the b.c.s. champion. senator rubio and i have introduced the resolution. it commends the university for the 34-31 championship game, which the senator from alabama and i have just talked about, and it caps a remarkable season of 14-0 for the seminoles, led by head coach jim bow fisher and his heisman quarterback, jamis winston, who this senator will concede to the senator from alabama that he is originally from hugheytown, alabama, which is not too far north of the florida line. and so for all the players, the coaches, the students, the

staff, and indeed the fans, all of those of florida state have made the university and entire state of florida very proud by winning this game in such an exciting and hard-fought and well-fought game. and so i'm grateful to our senate colleagues for passing this resolution later today. and, mr. president, i would like permission to speak on another topic. the presiding officer: the senator may proceed. mr. nelson: thank you, mr. president. well, yesterday marks the fourth anniversary of the devastating earthquake that hit haiti on january 12, 2010. the geological survey said that

precisely at 4:53 p.m. local time the caribbean and north american plates moved, resulting in a major earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude with aftershocks greater than 5.0 that continued for months afterward. it's been described as the largest urban disaster in modern history because in just 30 seconds more than 10 million cubic meters of rubble were created, enough to fill dump trucks parked bumper to bumper all the way from key west, florida, to the northern tip of the state of the presiding officer, maine, and then back

again. that's how much rubble was created. and we remember today 230,000 victims of the earthquake, one of the deadliest in history. the earthquake also resulted in over 300,000 injuries and left 1.5 million people homeless. i went to haiti immediately after the earthquake. it was a horrifying aftermath. and during the last four years, the path to the recovery for haiti has been very slow and arduous, particularly because that poor country has also faced so many other plagues -- rain storms, the edges of hurricanes,

vicious outbreak of cholera, and many other tropical storms. long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation is going to continue to take years, but the haitian government, with the support of the united states and the international community, hopefully it's going to keep the country moving afford. this past year i visited with president martelli and his officials, and they are making progress, and the international community has stepped up. but nobody has stepped up like the united states. we have led an unprecedented recovery effort, $3.5 billion for initial humanitarian needs and long-term assistance in health, infrastructure, rule of law, food, economic security.

and so in this last visit just in past august, i saw many of those reconstruction efforts already completed and others that are still well under way and others that are showing notable progress. but there's so much to be done. but the haitian people are incredible. they are resilient. they're resourceful. they are a proud people, and they have utilized the support they have received from around the world, including the haitian didiaspora, and a lot of that diaspora community is in florida. they have utilized that. we all want haiti to succeed and to continue to rebuild. and so four years after such

unbelievable devastation, let's pause to think about haiti and reaffirm our commitment to her. and we also want to congratulate the haitian people as they celebrate their country's 210th anniversary of independence; that thi is this . it is a tough subject. haiti is the poorest country in the entire western hemisphere. this is a certain special responsibility that those countries, particularly in the western hemisphere, that are more fortunate, a certain responsibility that we have to help that little country rebuild. mr. president, i yield the floor, and i would suggest the absence of a quorum, unless the senator is ready to speak, and i see that he is.

mr. grassley: mr. president? i would ask, since i just aride on the senate floor -- i would ask, since i just arrived on the senate floor, is it appropriate for me to speak on the judicial nomination we'll be voting on? the presiding officer: the senator may proceed. mr. grassley: okay. we're going to vote on the third of three nominees to the d.c. circuit. today it'll be judge robert wilkins. i'll oppose the judge's nomination, just as i did when the senate rejected the same nomination in november last year. this circuit, of course, is far and away the least busy in the country. this is one of the reasons why the democrats blocked nominees to this very same circuit, based on the very same argument regarding caseload, during the

bush administration. there are only two differences between then and now. back then the caseload was even higher, and back then there was a republican in the white house. today, of course, there is a democrat in the white house, a d also a democrat majority here in the senate. so today, by pushing this nomination for a circuit where there aren't more judges needed, based on caseload, i say that the senate majority -- meaning the senate democrats -- don't want to play by the same rules that they pioneered or by the same standards they established during the bush administration. so, even though the senate considered and rejected in nomination just a couple months ago, today once again we'll be

voting on judge which will kins' confirmation. we'll vote on the judge's nomination today because on november 21 last year the majority leader and the senate majority invoked the so-called nuclear option. so in one fell swoop, the majority leader did more damage to the institution than i've witnessed in more than three decades of service here in the senate. in fact, when the majority leader broke the rules to change the rules last november and tossed aside two centuries of senate history and precedent, he likely did more damage to this institution than any leader who preceded him. it was a power grab. of course it was a power grab. but it was more than that. it was fundamentally -- it fundamentally has altered the way that the senate operates. it stripped the minority of its rights under the rulings rules,f

course, but it was more than that as well. it cheapens the world's greatest deliberative body. about two hours ago i spoke on this subject to the senate based upon what james madison said was a function of the senate: to be a deliberative body, to bring stability to our political system, not to do things the same way the house of representatives does it. so, as a result of the nuclear option, the senate design has been forever altered, and it did it via brute force with zero buy-in from the minority. the result as we've seen over the last two months is less cooperation and more partisanship, something that the people of this country abhor.

now that's before you consider the current state of affairs regarding amendments here on the senate floor. the majority leader routinely blocks all senators from offering amendments by doing what we call filling the tree with amendments and then sets aside his blocker amendment for only those amendments that the leader considers appropriate for us to discuss. when you take into consideration the inability of senators to offer amendments of their choosing and combine it with the leader's decision to strip the minority of their right to extend the debate on nominations, it becomes clear why today's senate operates the way that it does. there are two great rights that u.s. senators have: the right to debate and the right to amend.

that's what makes us a deliberative body. that's what makes us so much different than the house of representatives. by stripping away on the one hand the right to extend nominations and denying senators on the other hand the right to offer amendments, the leader has taken those two rights and shredded them. it's to a point where some members of this body don't even have a full appreciation for the way the institution used to operate. so is it any wonder that it's difficult to get things done in today's senate. is it any wonder senators don't feel compelled to work and consult together? so today we will vote on a nomination that the senate rejected just a couple months ago, and now perhaps because the other side is having a bit of

buyer's remorse, some of my colleagues have been doing their best to rewrite history. senate democrats claim that republican opposition to the d.c. circuit nominees was, in their words, unprecedented. but conveniently failed to mention that senate democrats set the standard during the bush administration when they blocked qualified nominees to the d.c. circuit based on caseload, which is the same argument i used. but in those days a caseload was even heavier than it is today. and as i've said, back then the caseload was higher. you can't say that too often. the fact of the matter is that d.c. is the most underworked circuit in the nation.

i've given previous speeches on this subject and i've given a lot of statistics so i won't go over those statistics again today. but with the most recent data released by the nonpartisan administrative office of the u.s. courts, the numbers still show the d.c. circuit has the fewest number of appeals filed and appeals terminated among all of the federal circuit courts. on a per active judge basis, the d.c. circuit now has 111 total appeals filed per active judge. the national average is over three times higher at 377. the busiest court, the 11th circuit, comes in at over seven times higher than the d.c. circuit at 796. in other words, a federal appellate judge sitting in florida has a workload seven times heavier than the circuit

judge sitting here in d.c.. and i hope that people don't fall for the phony argument that cases in the d.c. circuit are more complicated. there are other circuits that handle more of these so-called complex cases than even d.c.. the bottom line is the empirical data has shown and continues to show that these judges could have been better used in other circuits. and i have a piece of legislation in that would move these three judges from the d.c. circuit to other circuits where the caseload is greater. to confirm what the statistics showed early last year, i decided to go straight to the source, the judges who served here in d.c. on this circuit before these nominations to the d.c. circuit were even made. i submitted a questionnaire to

each d.c. circuit judge asking them about their workload. their responses independently confirmed that the data show the court is severely underworked. one judge responded -- quote -- "if any more judges were added now, there wouldn't be enough work to go around." and you understand, i hope, that a judge -- these vacancies being filled are going to cost the taxpayer $1 million-plus a year probably forever as long as these seats are filled. so after looking carefully at the data and of course confirming my understanding with the judges themselves, i oppose these nominations based in part on the same standards by the democrats, the same standards established by the democrats

during the bush administration when they blocked nominees to the d.c. circuit. then, of course, there is a republican president. now we have a democrat president. but that of course wasn't the only reason for opposition to these nominees. for instance, gun rights supporters are opposed to judge wilkins not based on caseload, but because of the dearth of older cases for judge wilkins held a nonresident u.s. citizens don't have a second amendment right to purchase a firearm. the last judge we confirmed to the d.c. circuit was about the farthest thing from mainstream nominee you can get. i won't repeat everything that i said about that nominee in previous speeches or what that nominee has said or written, but i'll give you one example.

consider former professor pilllard's view on religious freedom. she argued that the supreme court of hosanna taber evangelical lutheran church which challenged the so-called ministerial exception to employment discrimination represented in her words -- quote -- "subsubstantial threat to the american rule of law." the supreme court on appeal rejected her view 9-0. nine to zero. and the court held that it -- quote -- "it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church's determination of who can act as its minister." end of quote. now think about that. former professor pilllard argued the challenge to the ministerial exception to employment law represented -- quote --

"substantial threat to the american rule of law." yet the court rejected the view 9-0 and held -- quote -- "it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church's determination who can act as a minister." do my colleagues honestly believe that it is within the mainstream to argue churches shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ministers? i don't believe that it is in the mainstream. so we know these judges aren't needed. far from it, we know these nominations aren't mainstream. far from it. then why did our senate democrats go to such lengths to stack this court? why go so far as to change the senate rules in order to fill these vacancies? why go so far to abuse and violate the senate rules to change the rules? well, because the president and

his allies will do whatever it takes to get their way even if it means breaking senate rules, silencing debate, circumventing congress or stacking the judicial deck in their favor to ensure that their executive actions are rubber stamped by the courts. it's no secret the president has decided to circumvent congress by relying heavily on executive orders and regulatory action to carry out an unpopular agenda. we all heard the president pledge repeatedly if congress won't act, i will. what he means, of course, is that if he -- is that he is going to do it all by executive action. he won't go to congress. he won't negotiate. in fact, he'll go around

congress. he decided he doesn't need legislators to make these changes. he'll just issue an executive order or issue new agency rules. as i've explained before, in effect, the president is saying if the senate won't firm who i want when i want them, then i'll recess appoint them when the senate isn't even in session. or on another time the president would say if congress won't pass cap and trade fee increases, then i'll go around the congress and do the same thing through administrative action at the environmental protection agency. or again, if congress won't pass gun control legislation, then i'll issue a series of executive orders. now, quite simply, that's what the president means when he says if congress won't act, i will. but remember, under our system,

it's the courts that provide a check on the president's powers. it's the courts that decide whether the president is acting unconstitutionally. so i only -- the only way the president's plan works is if he stacks the deck in his favor. the only way the president can successfully bypass congress is if he stacks the courts with ideological allies who will rubber stamp these executive orders. that is why it is so important for the president and the senate majority of his party allied together to stack the d.c. circuit even though the d.c. circuit doesn't have enough work at an additional $1 million for each of the three judges that are now being stacked into this court. as i've said, in the last few weeks the other side has attempted to rewrite history in efforts to justify action

they've taken. but the other side's effort to rewrite history isn't limited to the history of the d.c. circuit in particular. it extends to the number of so-called filibusters during the past few years. several times last week the senate majority claimed the republicans filibustered 20 of obama's district court nominees. according to their narrative, only 23 nominees have been filibustered in the history of the united states senate, and 20 occurred in the past five years. that's not remotely true, and the majority knows that. as near as i can tell, this claim is based on the number of times a cloture motion has been filed on district court nominees. of course everyone knows a cloture petition isn't a filibuster. a filibuster is a failure to end debate. nonetheless, let's look at those 20 nominees. 17 were filed at one time back

march 2012. that maneuver of course was a transparent effort to manufacture a crisis where no crisis existed. every single one of these cloture petitions was later withdrawn. as a result not one of those 17 nominees even had a cloture vote, let alone a failed cloture vote. in fact, of these 20 so-called filibusters of district court judges, the senate held only one cloture vote on a district court judge, and that cloture vote passed the senate. yet, the senate majority still claims that we filibustered 20 district court nominees. that is revisionist history if i've ever seen it. so let's review the alleged republican obstruction of the president's nominees. since the -- since president

obama took office the senate approved 218 of the president's lower court judicial nominees. that's 99%. so we have rejected only two, if the majority leader hadn't invoked the nuclear option, the number would have in fact been five instead of two. but not 20. not 34, as i have heard some claim. not even ten, which was the number that senate majority had blocked by the fifth year of president bush's nominee. five nominees. at the end of the day, the majority was willing to toss aside two centuries of senate practice and tradition over just five judicial nominees. so i continue to oppose this nominee just as i did when the senate rejected the nomination before the senate democrats broke the rules to change the rules. this judgeship wasn't warranted before the majority leader and

the democrats invoked the misguided nuclear option and certainly hasn't suddenly become warranted in the week since that time. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, -- the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

matt the majority leader. mr. reid: -- the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, we have the vote scheduled at 5:30, is that right? the presiding officer: that's correct. under the previous order, the senate will consider the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, robert wilkins of the district of columbia to be united states district judge for the district of columbia circuit. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader.

mr. reid: the republican leader and h.i.v. a number of conversations today about how we should proceed on unemployment insurance. i have had conversation and he has had conversation with a number of our members, both democrats and republicans. right now, because the vote is not scheduled until 5:30, it's been difficult for me and i'm quite certain the republican leader to talk to all the necessary people involved in trying to come to some conclusion as to how we should proceed on this legislation. two of the people i met with today are -- everyone knows are people who are trying to work something out, senator collins and senator heller. senator heller is the cosponsor of the underlying bill, and senator collins is always trying to make peace with everybody. and they have made a proposal. i have outlined that proposal and i appreciate their good

work. however, i can't automatically agree to it because it calls for three-month rather than the 11 months or so that we had in the underlying proposal that's before the senate. and as everyone knows, the president is not in favor of a three-month proposal and i'm not either, but that doesn't mean that we can't work something out. i have made statements that i would prefer a longer period proposal. so has the president. however, mr. president, i -- my main point in saying a few words this afternoon is i need to be able to meet with other senators, need to complete my caucus tomorrow before i can determine how i would suggest along with the two republican senators i met with, how we would proceed on this matter. of course, i would be happy to yield. mr. mcconnell: i would just observe, mr. president, that what i'm hoping for here is an

open amendment process. we have an amendment tree filled and it remains my hope that we will be able through these discussions that we've had to get to something closer to what we have been accustomed to in the past with a relatively open amendment process. so under those circumstances, i don't -- and in the hope that by tomorrow we end up with a more fair process, i am happy to go along with what the majority leader is suggesting. mr. reid: mr. president, i would then ask unanimous consent that we proceed now to legislative session and get out of executive session. when i finish my remarks and the republican leader finishes his remarks, i would ask that we go back into executive session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i then, mr. president, ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on amendment number 2631 occur at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. further, that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on s.

1845 occur following disposition of amendment numbered 2631, or if cloture is not invoked on amendment numbered 2631, the senate move immediately to the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on s. 1845. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i hope this will allow us a way to move forward. we will do our best to move forward. and i am trying the best that i can do to come up with an arrangement to move forward. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate will resume executive session. mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: if i understand it, we are on the nomination of judge robert wilkins? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. cardin: i rise today in strong support of the nomination of judge robert l. wilkins to be circuit judge for the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit. i was pleased to introduce judge wilkins to the judiciary committee in september, and the committee favorably reported his nomination in october. he was filibustered in november, and i'm pleased that we are reconsidering his nomination today. judge wilkins currently serves as a federal district judge for the united states district court for the district of columbia, so he's a district court judge today, confirmed by the united

states senate for a lifetime appointment and now has been nominated by president obama to fill the circuit court, that is the court above the district court for the district of columbia. i am happy that we're going to get a chance to vote on the merits of this confirmation. judge wilkins is a native of muncie, indiana. he obtained his b.s. cum laude in chemical engineering from rose holman institute of technology and his j.d. from harvard law school. following graduation, judge wilkins clerked for the honorable earl b. gilliam of the united states district court for the corn district of california. he later served as a staff attorney and head of special litigation for the public defender service for the district of columbia. he then practiced as a partner with venerable, specializing in white-collar defense and complex civil litigation before taking the seat as a district court

judge. besides judge wilkins' professional accomplishments as an attorney, he has also played a leading role as a plaintiff in the landmark civil rights case in maryland involving racial profiling. during his tenure with the public defender service and in private practice, judge wilkins served as the lead plaintiff in wilkins versus the state of maryland, a civil rights lawsuit against the maryland state police for a traffic stop that they conducted on judge wilkins and his family. let me just give you a little bit of the circumstances of what judge wilkins went through. in 1992, he attended his grandfather's funeral in chicago and then began an all-night road trip home with three of his family members. judge wilkins was due back in washington, d.c., the coming morning for a court appearance as a public defender. the maryland state police trooper pulled over their car. the police detained the family and deployed a drug-sniffing dog to check the car after judge

wilkins declined to consent to search of the car, saying there was no reasonable suspicion. the family stood in the rain during the search which did not uncover any contraband. judge wilkins later wrote, and i quote -- "it is hard to describe the frustration and pain you feel when people pressure you to be guilty for no good reason and you know that you are innocent. you fit the profile to a t. we were traveling on i-68 early in the morning in a virginia rental car, and my cousin and i, the front seat passengers, were young black males. the only problem was that there was no dangerous armed drug trafficker. it should not be suspicious -- it should not be suspicious to travel on a highway early in the morning in a virginia rental car and it should not be suspicious to be black." after the traffic stop, judge wilkins began reviewing maryland state police data and noticed that while a majority of those searched on i-95 were black,

blacks made up only a minority of the drivers traveling on the highway. judge wilkins filed a civil rights lawsuit which resulted in two landmark settlements that were the first to require a systematic compilation and publication of police agencies' data for all highway drug and weapon searches, including data regarding the race of motorists involved, the justification for the search and the outcome of the search. the settlements also required the state police to hire an independent consultant, install video cameras in their vehicles, conduct international investigations of all citizen complaints of racial profiling and provide the maryland naacp with quarterly reports containing detailed information on the number, nature, location and disposition of racial profiling complaints. these settlements inspired a june, 1999, executive order by president clinton, congressional hearings and legislation that has been enacted in over half of

the 50 states. this was a landmark case, and the settlement provided the wherewithal for many states to change their practices on traffic stops and how traffic stops would be conducted. it was an important action that judge wilkins took as a private citizen in order to advance the rights of all people. i applaud him for that courage, not only to stand up for what was wrong for him but also to be active in changing those practices around the country. as my colleagues know, i have introduced s. 1038, the end racial profiling act which would codify many of the practices now used by the maryland state police to root out the use of racial profiling by law enforcement. the judiciary committee held a hearing ending the use of racial profiling last year, and i am hopeful that with the broader discussion on racial profiling generated by the tragic death of

trayvon martin, that we can come together and move forward on this legislation. judge wilkins played a key role in the passage of the federal statute establishing the national museum of african-american history and culture plan for action presidential commission. he served as chairman of the site and building committee of that presidential commission. the work of the presidential commission led to the passage of public law number 108-184, which authorized creation of the national museum of african-american history and culture. this museum will be the newest addition to the smithsonian and is scheduled to open in 2015 between the national museum of american history and the washington monument on the national mall. i mention that because judge wilkins has been involved in our community. he is not only an outstanding jurist, he's a person who has stood up for basic rights, he's taken action where things were wronged against him and he has been very active in our community. he also continues his pro bono

work to this day. he currently serves as the court liaison to the standing committee on pro bono legal services of the judicial conference of the d.c. circuit. he is committed to public service and equal justice. u.s. a u.s. district judge from the district of columbia since 2011, judge wilkins has resided over hundreds of civil and criminal cases, including both jury and bench trials. judge wilkins already sits on a federal bench which hears an unusual number of cases of national importance to the federal government, including complex election laws, voting rights, environmental security and administrative law cases. indeed, judge wilkins has been nominated for the appellate court that would directly hear appeals on from the court on which he currently sits. he understands the court he's been nominated to by president obama. the bar association gave judge wilkins a rating of unanimously well qualified to serve as an federal appellate judge which is the highest possible rating from

the nonpartisan peer review. the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit is also referred to as the nation's second highest court. supreme court only accepts a handful of cases each year, so the d.c. circuit often has the last word and proclaims the final law of the land on a range of critical areas of the law because many of these cases are brought to the d.c. circuit. this court handles an unusual complex cases in the area of administrative law including decisions and rule making on federal agencies and policy areas such as environment, labor and financial regulations. nationally, only about 15% of the appeals are administrative in nature, 15%, that's a national number. in d.c. circuit that figure is 43%. they have a much larger caseload on complex cases. the court also hears a variety of sensitive cases involving

cases such as enemy combatants and detention policies. let me quote from henry edwards who said "review of large multiparty difficult administrative appeals is the staple of judicial work in the d.c. circuit. this alone distinguishes the work of the d.c. circuit from the work of other circuits. it also explains why it's impossible to compare the work of the d.c. circuit with other circuits by simply referring to raw data on case filings" -- end quote. i mention that because there have been some here who say the workload of the court. the workload of the court requires us to fill this vacancy. chief justice roberts noted -- and i quote -- "about two-thirds of the cases before the d.c. circuit involve the federal government in some civil capacity. while that figure is less than 25% nationwide" -- end quote. he also described the d.c. circuit's unique character as a court with special responsibility to review legal challenges to the conduct of national government. he should know, justice roberts

came from that circuit court. we have a person who is eminently qualified for this position and that's judge wilkins. he -- we have a need to fill this vacancy, the senate should carry out its responsibility and we're going to have that chance very shortly. let me remind my colleagues that the senate unanimously confirmed judge wilkins in 2010 for his current position and he has a distinguished lifelong record of public service. i am pleased that we have moved forward to get an up-or-down vote on this nomination. i ask the senate and my colleagues to support the confirmation of this eminently qualified judge. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the question occurs on the nomination. mr. johanns: ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senators wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the ayes are 55, the nays are 43. the nomination is confirmed. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the motion be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, there is a lot of work going on around the capitol this evening and tomorrow morning. we'll see if we can figure out a way to move forward to help 1.4 million people who are unemployed to extend insurance benefits to them. it's something we need very, very much, and we're going to see if we can work -- if we can move forward. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will resume legislative session. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my brief remarks, that senator lee be recognized, and after senator lee, senator harkin be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, as the leader indicated, we are working to try to develop a response to the 1.3 million americans who on december 28 lost their unemployment benefits, the

extended benefits, and since that time the number has increased. about 70,000 americans are week are losing their unemployment insurance benefits, and this number is now approaching roughly 1.5 million americans, and it will approach a significantly higher number of americans throughout the year. about 70,000, as i said, each week are losing these benefits. this is an emergency. these people have worked, they are in a job market where typically there are two applicants for every job, and we're seeing a job market that is moving sometimes forward and sometimes sideways. the numbers last friday were quite disappointing for december. it could have been the weather, but it could be other factors, but it does underscore the need to move very aggressively to address the issue of these unemployed americans. the average benefit is about $300, $350 a week. the only reason they qualified

for the benefit is because they did work and they're still looking for work. one of the ironies of last week's numbers is even though we had a very mediocre job creation, the unemployment rate fell. why? because people are leaving the work force. they're giving up. we can't let that happen. and one reason, one way we keep people looking for work and we keep them able to look for work is we provide this modest benefit each week. and so we're looking very hard, and we have had a great deal of collaboration and cooperation. i want to thank senators heller, collins, portman, ayotte and coats. they voted to keep this process going forward, and i respect and thank them for that. and i know over this last weekend, particularly senators heller, collins and portman have been working to try to find a way to move forward. let me say, though, that we on our side have moved very, very

far. typically, typically these benefits are not paid for. last year's 12 months of unemployment insurance was an emergency. it probably created on the order of 100,000-plus jobs, which would not have taken place without that kind of increase in demand in the economy generated by these payments to individuals looking for work. well, we heard what our colleagues said, that this has to be paid for, and so we went ahead and we proposed a pay-for. again, many of my colleagues in the democratic caucus in both the house and the senate would prefer to see these benefits as emergency unpaid for. we have repeatedly done that. we have also changed the duration of the benefits. we eliminated some weeks in the first two tiers so that we would be able to afford this benefit

and still give people the opportunity to move forward. so we have moved with from what we have typically done, and again, if you flook back over the years, the exception is paying for these benefits. many times during the bush administration, we provided unemployment benefits unpaid for. now we're asking to pay for it. we have tried to pay for them. we have tried to change the duration so that we can afford them but still provide help for people. and we have done this because we have one that they have to be paid for, and two, you can't use revenues. now, a balanced approach to any public policy solution has to i think at least consider revenues, but our colleagues have been staunched by saying we will not entertain at all any revenues to offset this payment. now, there are a long list of

egregious tax provisions which have been highlighted by many of my colleagues, particularly senator levin and his work with respect to corporate benefits that not only should be corrected but could be applied to allow these americans the opportunity to have some substance, some support as they go forward looking for work. but because our -- our colleagues on this side say no revenue, okay, we have looked for ways to pay for this without engageing in rhetoric. so we have made i think a significant step forward. in turn, my colleagues have come back and they have proposed variations on some of the things we have talked about. they have done it in good faith. they have done it with greaten general iewity. and again i want to thank them. we haven't yet come to a meeting of the minds, but we're working. i just hope that at the end of the day -- and let me go back to

the original proposal that senator heller and i made. we said let's do this for three months without a pay-for. that will give us the time to do a lot of the work that my colleagues have suggested. they have talked about how training programs have to be changed, how skills have to be matched up with jobs. very intricate programmatic changes. that's not going to be done here on the floor within 24, 48 or 72 hours. but again, i just want to remind and conclude by saying there are now approaching 1.5 million americans who were abandoned on december 28, their benefits were cut off. they are in some cases desperate. they're trying to pay their mortgages. they're trying to keep their homes. they're trying to put food on the table. they're trying to put gas in their car, natural gas to heat their homes in cold weather, and i think we have to respond.

and again, i thank my colleagues who have helped, but tomorrow we're going to get closer to sort of a point of reckoning, and i hope we can come together and move forward. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i thank my colleagues from rhode island and iowa for their cooperation in establishing the speaking order this evening. i'd like to speak for a moment about the vote we just cast. we just confirmed judge wilkins to the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit. by a -- i voted against this judge and in doing that i joined my republican colleagues for one simple reason: several years ago, when president george w. bush was in the white house, he nominated an eminently qualified lawyer named peter keisler who had bipartisan support, who was not a partisan hack, he was a true craftsman in the law. he was someone that no one had

any ideological opposition to but he was blocked by the senate democrats at that time for the simple fact based on the simple reason that according to the senate democrats the d.c. circuit's caseload was not sufficiently robust to justify the filling of this position. now, since that time, not very many things have changed. since that time, if anything, the d.c. circuit's caseload per judge has remained about the same or some would argue has gone down a little bit depending on which metric you use. one thing that has changed is that we have now a democratic president in the white house instead of a republican president in the white house. and suddenly my friends across the aisle have forgotten about the caseload-based arguments they used a few years ago to keep peter keisler off of the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit. we've now confirmed just in the last few weeks three additional judges to the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit.

this has happened against substantial republican opposition that has been based on the very analysis that i've just outlined. and this has been facilitated by virtue of the fact that my distinguished colleague, the senior senator from nevada, joined by his democratic colleagues, chose a few weeks ago to exercise what's been referred to as the nuclear option. they broke the rules of the senate in order to change the rules of the senate and they did so so that they can put more people on the bench, so that they can put more people into top-level positions in this administration. while more or less squelching the view of the minority party within the senate. this is unfortunate. but most -- the most unfortunate aspect of it is the fact that it's part of a broader strategy that isn't limited to the d.c. circuit. in fact, it's not even limited

to the senate's confirmation process, with respect to these judges or other judges. it extends much more broadly than that. it's part of the same effort that convinced the president of the united states on january 4, 2012, to make four appointments , three to the national labor relations board and one to the consumer financial protection bureau, pursuant to the president's recess appointment power. citing article , section 2, clause 3 of the constitution, the president claimed he had the power to appoint these individuals without going through the senate advice and subsequent process because -- consent process because as he asserted, the senate was in recess. there was only problem with this. the senate was not, in fact, in recess. under article 1, section 5, clause 2 of the constitution, each chamber of congress, including the senate, has the

right to determine its own rules. its own procedures. and according to the senate's own rules and according to the senate's own journal, the senate was, in fact, in session as of january 4, 2012, the moment these supposedly recess appointments were made. this was a problem. fortunately the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit -- prior, i would add, to the confirmation of the three recent judges we've confirmed the last few weeks -- concluded that this was a lawless act, that it was unconstitutional, that the president didn't have the right to deem the senate in recess when according to the senate's own rules the senate was in session. the senate was not in recess. in that -- that case today was reviewed by the supreme court of the united states and i had the privilege of sitting in the courtroom just across the street and watching these proceedings. i was pleased to see that the

checks and balances within our system were functioning, at least to the extent that we have our court system reviewing this act by the president of the united states. i think it's fortunate we have this kind of judicial system that can review it. based on what i saw today and the quality of the arguments presented to the court i'm hope thankful the court will reach the same conclusion, that the court will -- the supreme court will affirm the judgment entered by the d.c. circuit. in a broader sense, it's sad, it's disappointing it even had to get that far. it's sad and disappointing that the president of the united states was willing to engage in such a lawless act as this, that the president of the united states was willing openly to flout the plain language, the text, the history, the tradition of the u.s. constitution. ours is not a government of one. it was with good reason that the founding fathers split up the power, including the power to

appoint people to high federal office. such that the president could nominate but the senate got to confirm. the president's approach pursuant to which the president of the united states could himself deem the senate to be in recess if he didn't think the senate was doing enough when it went into brief sessions, the president himself could substantially circumvent the advice and consent rule that -- role that the founding fathers and the constitution wisely placed in the hands of the senate. so the reason i say it's unfortunate that it had to get that level, it's unfortunate first of all that the president felt it was okay, that it was acceptable to do this. he, of course, took an oath not once and but twice to downuphold, protect and defend the constitution of the united states. it's unfortunate secondarily there was not more of an outcry from this body. sure, there were a lot of republicans who joined me in calling this action lawless because it was. and it was sad that none of our

colleagues from the other side of the aisle, at least not publicly, were willing to acknowledge the lawlessness of this act. some acknowledged to me in private that it was problematic. some acknowledged to me that there were somism caigdz behind this that threatened the senate has a institution but i think we need to be more open, more faithful, less partisan about the way we defend the tiewngs of the united states. -- the constitution of the united states. to me this would not matter if this were a republican president, i would be arguing with equal strength on this issue. and in the future when we have a republican president, if any republican president is lawless enough to try this i will oppose it with everything in me. mr. president, we are he we ourselves take an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states and i think that involves doing more than simply leaving it to the courts to iron out the details. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: first i want to thank the senator from rhode island and the senator from utah for agreeing to the way we worked this out so we could all are our time to speak on the senate floor. i appreciate it very, very much. mr. president, extending unemployment compensation benefits is one of the most important things, vital things that we should be doing right now in congress, both for the people who are unemployed but also for our economy. our economy is improving slowly, there are still 20 million americans either out of

work or marginally employed who want to work. almost four million of those have been out of work for over six months. so faced with this reality, it is reprehensible that congress failed to extend federal unemployment benefits at the end of last year. three days after christmas. so to correct this failure last week the senate began considering a bill intended to extend those benefits. and i wholeheartedly support this effort. as our economy makes steady improvements on the long road to recovery from the great recession we should continue to support our fellow americans who are out of work through no fault of their own. the way to do that is restore a federal unemployment insurance program for the long-term unemployed. but to garner the votes needed

to pass the unemployment insurance extension, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle insisted that we find a way to, quote, pay for it. to cuts -- through cuts to existing programs. cuts that one columnist for the "l.a. times" said were swiftian in their absurdity and cruelty. i refer to an article that appeared in the january 10 issue of the "l.a. times" -- "l.a. times" by michael hiltzik titled "an awful idea" hammer the disabled to pay for unemployment benefits. the first paragraph says it would take the pen of jonathan swift to fully described the willingness of congress to beat up on the least fortunate of society to protect the richest. the latest example is a plan to pay for a one-year extension of unemployment insurance by

cutting social security benefits for the disabled. first of all i want to say i do not believe that an extension of federal unemployment insurance benefits needs to be offset. we've done it before, we did it under the bush administration, we've done it before and it's always been an emergency. just as if a hurricane hits, a terrible storm, well, this is a terrible storm for people who are unemployed for long periods of time. and quite frankly the recent budget deal that we just passed reduced the deficit by $25 billion. so i disagree with having to find the extra money. but if the other side, republicans say no, we have to find offsets, well, i guess i'm reluctantly willing to do so. however, mr. president, the proposal before us would do so in one of the most pernicious

ways possible. i guess the most positive thing i could say about it, it is comparatively less damaging than some of the amendments filed by ply republican colleagues. but understand this: the proposal before us to extend unemployment benefits and to, quote, pay for it, what it would do is it would deny individuals who have a disability and who are receiving social security disability insurance, it would say that if you get unemployment compensation, that your disability payments will be reduced dollar for dollar for every dollar that you get in unemployment compensation. now, that's bad enough, and i'll get into that in a second. amendments filed on the republican side would go further. and they would say if you get $1

in unemployment compensation payments, would you lose all of your disability rights, all your disability payments and all your medicare support that comes along with being approved for ssdi, social security disability insurance. now, the proponents of these policies say that people with disabilities who receive disability insurance payments and unemployment compensation payments, they say they're double dipping. they claim this is a loophole that somehow people who receive both are scamming the system. this is not true. this is simply not true. ssdi, social security disability insurance, is a designed -- a design to address the needs of people with

disabilities. unemployment insurance is designed as a partial temporary replacement of income for people who have lost jobs through no fault of their own. they're two separate programs. two separate programs with two separate designed benefits. and it is possible for an individual to be eligible for both. how can this be? first of all, we have to disabuse ourselves of what we keep hearing here on the senate floor, from my friends on the republican side. they keep talking about disability insurance as though if you get social security disability insurance, then you're unable to work. again, that's not true. that is simply not true. ssdi is set up as a system to

give you some support while you look for work or you get a job and supplement that. under the law -- under the law, people who qualify for ssdi, social security disability, think -- i'll just say disability. people who qualify for disability insurance can work and are encouraged to work, and they can make up to $1,070 a month without losing their ssdi. now, why is that? why is it? because we want people to work to the best of their abilities, especially when they have a disability. people with disabilities also want to work. th n now, keep in mind, mr. president, the ssdi program is not a free-loader program. fica taxes -- you know,

mr. president, when you work and you get a paycheck, they take out fica taxes. that's federal insurance contribution act, the federal insurance contribute act, fica taxes. three parts of it. you pay to an insurance program for social security, old age and survivors, indemnity insurance so when you get old, you get a check. that's what most people think of as social security. the second part is hospital insurance, medicare. the third part is disability insurance. now, if you don't work -- if you don't work and you haven't paid in your fica taxes, you don't get ssdi. listen to this. an adult becomes eligible for disability insurance compensation when they have worked at least 10 years and at least five of those years you

have had to have worked at least 10 years and at least five years prior to getting social security disability. and you have to have earned at least $4,800 a year. have least earned $400 a month for five years before you even qualify. so this idea that i keep hearing about, oh, someone works for four weeks and then they go out and file for disability and then they're on disability for the rest of their lives, is nonsen nonsense. that's not true. and yet you just keep hearing these stories going round and round. you have to have worked 10 years and you have to have worked five years prior to receiving it and you have to have worked and made at least $4,800 a year before you even qualify. then let's say you do become disabled and you file for disability. what's your chances of getting it? one out of three. for every three persons who file

for social security disability insurance compensation, only one out of three actually get it. why is that? you've got to go through a long evidentiary process, a medically evidentiary process. an administrative law judge can send you back to get further opinions. so it's not something you just file for and you get it. only one out of three. only one out of three qualify. and so that's why, mr. president, if a person wor works -- if a person works and pays taxes, their fica taxes, and that person is laid off, if that person is laid off, they can get unemployment. but if they also qualify for disability insurance, they should get that if they've paid into the system.

people with disabilities who work and pay into that system can also be eligible for unemployment compensation. why shouldn't they get that? listen to this. if we deny people with disabilities their right to the insurance they've paid for, we are discriminating against a group of people in a way that no other group is singled out. in other words, we are discriminating against you just because you're disabled. how do you like that? is that what we're about? we're going to discriminate against you just because you're disabled? because if you're not disabled, you won't be discriminated against. if you're not disabled, you'll get your unemployment compensation. you might even be eligible for some other government programs, section 8 housing or something

like that. we don't take that away. but, god forbid, if you become disabled and you're working -- you're disabled, you get a disability check, you go to work. you can work up to $1,070 a month and you're working, providing a little bit of extra income so you can live independently, maybe provide a few things for yourself. but you and only you -- only y you -- if you get unemployment compensation, we're going to take away your disability payments. only you. nobody else. nobody else is denied their full unemployment compensation. only people with disabilities. under the bill that we have. ret mlet me provide a real-life

example of what this means to a real person. i'll call him henry. this is a real person. henry lives in the district of columbia. henry has a disability. he's deaf. and he has other health problems on top of being deaf. but henry worked, he worked for 10 years. he worked for five years, he paid into the -- he paid in. and then in his 30's, because of other health reasons, he couldn't continue to work full time so he went on disability. and qualified for it. so he's on disability and he's making $740 a month on his disability insurance. $740 a month. well, he can earn up to $1,070 a

month, as i've said, under the law and still get that. so because he couldn't work full time but henry likes to work, he wants to work. he wants to be a productive citizen, mr. president. so he went out and got haims hia part-time job consistent with his disabilities. he makes $950 a month. so you had $950 and $740, he gets $1,690 a month. big deal. but i can tell you what that $1,690 does for him. it allows him to live independently, allows him to provide some payments for a -- for a -- a support system, allows him to sign up for cable tv. allows him to go see a movie once in awhile. maybe even go out and have a hamburger. $1,690 a month. now, that's what henry was doi

doing. henry became unemployed. but now, mind you, every time -- every month he worked and made $950 a month, he paid in, he paid in, he paid into his fica taxes every month. now he gets unemployed. well, what happens? well, he went on unemployment compensation and he gets $520 a month. so he gets his $740 on disability, he gets his $520 on unemployment. he gets $1,260 a month. a little over $400-and-some less than what he was getting when he was working full time. but still $1,260 a month allows him to live independently, allows him to support himself. under the amendment that's in this bill, here's what happens. he gets his $520 in unemployment but his disability is reduced to

$220 a month. now henry is getting $740 a month. what's he going to do? he won't be able to afford his apartment, let alone have cable tv. i don't even -- i don't know if henry has cable tv. but $740 a month. no other person working in america and paying in their fica taxes is treated like that. no one. and they still aren't unless this amendment is adopted. and then we will discriminate against you simply because you're disabled. i mean, it's just -- you wonder what people are thinking about. yes, i have compassion for those who are unemployed. i'd like to see our economy being improved a little bit better. we ought to extend unemployment benefits but not at the expense

of people who are on the lowest rung of our ladder. people with disabilities who have paid into the system and who become unemployed. henry wants to work. he wants to work. he wants to make that $950 a month. pernicious? pernicious. that's just a fancy way of saying this is abominable that we would even consider such a thing. that we would even consider it. henry's not double dipping, he's not scamming the system, he's not a slacker, he's not defrauding anybody. he's only getting what is rightfully his because he paid into the program.

if people with disabilities are earning income, as henry was, and paying into the disability insurance program, they should be eligible for that just as any other citizen who paid into that program. again, to do otherwise would be to discriminate against someone just because they're disabled. mr. president, one of my proudest moments in my history here in the senate, indeed, in the entire congress, is when i stood on this floor as the chief sponsor of the american with -- americans with disabilities act in 1990. when we passed that and president bush signed it into law, the cheers went up, 25 years after the passage of the great civil rights act of 1965.

because that was sort of the emancipation proclamation for people with disabilities. and because of that law, we have encouraged people with disabilities to work. they want to work. now we just want to break down the barriers, provide for accommodations and transportation and ramps and widened doors and all the other things that make it possible for people with disabilities to get a job and go to work. changed the system. oh, i can remember when we had the hearings. we had people come in and testify, well, employers said we'd hire people with disabilities but sometimes they don't show up for work and this and that. well, i looked into it and found out they couldn't get the bus. ha. hthey couldn't get on the bus because the bus wasn't accessible. how are they going to get to work? can't drive because they've got a wheelchair. can't get on the bus. so we changed it.

we made the buses accessible, the metro's accessible, everything's accessible now. and people with disabilities are working and they want to work. but now we're saying to them, you can work, like henry here, you can work and you should and you can make -- and you can get -- if you qualify for disability insurance, you can get your disability insurance and you can make up to $1,070 a month because we would like to you work and you want to work. but if you pay into that system and you become unemployed, you're going to go, like henry, ha, from $1,690 a month to $740 a month. simply because we're discriminating against you. what kind of a signal does that send? that's why this provision is opposed by members of the entire disability community. a.r.c., the national disability rights network, the national association of social security claims represents, the american association of people with disaicialghts and on and on and -- disabilities, and on and on and on.

and i ask unanimous consent that a letter expressing opposition to this proposal from these groups be included tend of my remarks, mr. president. -- included at the end of my remarks, mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: so as much as i support extending unemployment insurance for the long term, we shouldn't, as this article said. and, by the way, i also ask consent that this article from the "l.a. times" appear at the end of my remarks also. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: as we pointed out, you hammer the disabled to pay for unemployment benefits? it's just -- you sometimes wonder. now, look, i want to be clear about one thing. i don't ascribe bad motives to anybody in this body, not in the least. as a matter of fact, i am told that there will be a motion to strike this provision in the -- in the -- when we vote on thi

this -- on the cloture on this tomorrow, there will be a motion to strike this provision and that's good, and i hope it's generally supported by everyone here. so i don't subscribe bad motives. but sometimes what happens is we don't think these things through. someone starts this thing and says oh, they're double dipping, they're scamming the system and all of a sudden it sounds, oh, my gosh, yeah. but when you look into it and you examine it and you find out that, wait a minute, these people have been paying in their fica taxes -- they've been paying it in -- and yet you're saying just because you're disabled, you don't get it if you become unemployed. i just don't think -- we were by around here, you look at different things. there is no bad motives. but i want to take the floor to set the record straight and to let everyone know just what's at stake here. do we really truly want to

discriminate against 117,000 americans? that's what the general accounting office said in a study done a couple years ago, that there were about 117,000 americans at any one time who are getting disability insurance and also unemployment. now, again, if henry's health improved and he was able to get a full-time job, he wouldn't get his disability. he would go back and start earning money full time. so are we saying that somehow we're going to take away their incentive to work? take away their incentive to work? i don't think so. i don't think so. i think it's just one of those things that comes up and people say they're double dipping and they're scamming the system. no, that's not what's happening at all. that's not what's happening at all. they pay into the system. it's insurance.

they pay for it. they ought to receive it. and they shouldn't have their disability payments reduced because they're getting it. two separate programs. two separate programs. so, mr. president, i hope that -- i hope that two things happen. i hope we can get cloture on the bill to proceed to extend federal unemployment benefits. but i also hope that all my colleagues will see the error of this amendment, of this part of it and move to strike it. it's fundamentally, fundamentally, it's the only right thing to do. it's the only right thing to do. so i hope we'll do that and i hope that we'll begin to take a look more and more at disability insurance, what it means, how it operates, the fact that the notion that somehow if you get disability insurance you can't work. that is not true.

you can work. you're able if you're able to work, and you can earn up to $1,070 a month without losing your disability payments. so i hope as we go forward we'll begin to shed more light on this and have a more enlightened discussion on this program and how it operates and why it's so essential to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against in a manner that no other part of our society would be if this provision were left in the bill. so, mr. president, with that, i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask, mr. president, we proceed to s. res. 331. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 331 congratulating the florida state university football team for winning the 2014 bowl championship series national championship. the presiding officer: without objection the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution the be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to senate resolution 332. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 332 congratulating the north dakota state university football team for winning the 2013 national collegiate athletic

association division 1 football championship subdivision title. the presiding officer: without objection the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tuesday morning, january 14, following the prayer and pledge the morning hour deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day. following any leader remarks the senate resume unemployment insurance extension with the time until 12:30 divided between the two leaders or the designees. the republicans control the final 30 minutes. the filing deadline be at 10:00 a.m. tuesday. the senate recess from 12:30 to

2:15 to allow for weekly caucus meetings and the time from 2:15 to 2:30 be confide equally divided and controlled by the two leaders. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the deadline for filing the second-degree amendments be 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: that's on the unemployment compensation bill. so there could be two roll call votes tomorrow at 2:30. if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask that we adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

house budget committee chairman paul ryan today said the war on poverty started by president lyndon johnson has failed. he says taxes, welfare and entitlement programs make it harder for people to move into the middle class. his remarks came this afternoon at the brookings institution in washington. this is half an hour. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon. my name is ron. we codirected the center on children and families here at brookings. we have had a long day of discussions. we started this morning with senator gillibrand and now we have been talking about poverty and opportunity. quite fascinating and great people here and in our relentless attempt to be nonpartisan or bipartisan we begin the day with a democrat and then the day with chairman paul ryan of the budget committee. here is something might surprise you. knowledge counts for a lot in congress. paul ryan's career illustrates this claim. first he's a former congressional staffer and we all know that they are necessarily brilliant and second upon arriving in congress he looked around and asked himself, what makes this place run?

the answer of course is money and the budget is a source of all money so he decided he's going to learn more about the federal budget than anybody else and within an hour or two he knew more about the budget than anybody up on the hill. and, of course most senior positions on the hill are based on inherent logic so it was natural he become the head of the budget committee. here's another thing that might surprise you. before he was so interested in the budget, he was very interested in issues having to do with poverty and opportunity. especially opportunity. he had top staffers in this area which always a key to understanding what a member of congress is really concerned about and recently he has been doing amazing thing which is spending a lot of time in inner cities and other poor communities meeting with people who run programs for the poor.

this is not exactly on the top of the list of most republican members of congress so it's quite an amazing thing. so let see what he is learning by visiting these poor communities and what policies they are driving him to. so, chairman ryan. [applause] >> thanks so much ron and i saw bill over in the hallway and she invited ron had a great talk the other day. i'm a big fan of what they do here and their work. i used to come to brookings and crack these jokes about coming out of the inky in the cocoon of the conservative think-tank area but this is my fifth time in this very room i think so i don't think i can crack those jokes anymore. i feel comfortable coming over here these days. don't hold that against me. i then made a three year report on social mobility, the whole thing. it came out six years ago. i even read it last week. i'm grateful you invited me here

today. i'm very pleased to see this conversation occurring. now ron and bell asked me to talk about two things. first, how do i see the issue of opportunity? second, what are some ideas to increased opportunities? in other words what is opportunity and how do we get more of it? here is how i see it. behind every opportunity is someone who takes a chance. if you mentor a child, you advise a student, you hire somebody. two people, normally strangers, they form a bond and worked together to create value to strike knowledge to help each other. so i would say the key opportunity is trust and government, when used wisely, increase that trust. take one example. interstate highway system. that is something we all could agree on. of course the federal government should build a highway system

because that would actually encourage interstate commerce, and he did for a simple reason. it got people to interact. the more people interact, the more they trust each other and as we all know where there is trust, there is collaboration. where there is collaboration, there is economic growth. so, to me, when it comes to judging a particular policy reform i have got a really simple test. does it ring people together at as a pull them apart? does it increase trust and collaboration or does it stifle it? government is a very powerful tool. two powerful you might say. just as it can build and encourage it can frustrate and deter. you know as a conservative i look at my own rating and look at -- one is his great in size was the taxes don't just take money out of people's pockets, they can end up taking people out of the workforce.

they discourage people from putting in an extra hour or hiring that extra worker and so just as government can increase opportunity government can destroy it as well. and perhaps there is no better example of governments ability to disappoint, to miss the mark than lbj's war on poverty. this month marks the 50th anniversary of that war. and for years, politicians of a point of the money they have spent or the programs they have created that despite our spending trillions of dollars, 47 million people live in poverty. that's 15% of our fellow citizens. that's one out of seven people. that's the highest rate in a generation. we are spending a lot and it's just not working. it's missing its mark. well, why? i think it all goes back to opportunity. poverty is not just some form of deprivation.

it is a form of isolation. if there's anything i have been learning, it's that. what do we know about the poor? ron would say three things. they are less likely to have regulated from high school. they are less likely to work full-time and they are less likely to have gotten married before they had kids. they are cut off from three crucial sources of support, education, work and family. now government isn't solely responsible for these trends but in other ways government is deepening the divide. over the past 50 years it has built up a hodgepodge of programs in a furious attempt to replace these missing links. and because these programs are so disorganized and dysfunctional they pull families closer to government and away from society in so many ways. our goal should be to reintegrate the poor into our communities but washington is walling them up as if they are in some massive quarantine.

as my friend senator mike lee says we need to bring in the poor, to expand their access to our economy and civil society. they are not fulfilling their potential and we, we are all missing out. we have to remember that poverty is not some rare disease from which the rest of us are all immune. it is but the worst strain of a widespread disease otherwise known as economic insecurity. most families worry about making ends meet. all of us have felt isolated at times. that is why the concern for the poor, it is not some policy niche. this cannot be some box check on some new contract with america. this goes to the very, very heart of the american experiment itself. so how do we bring in the poor?

how can the federal government helped? i'm afraid i don't have all the answers but a little humility in washington might be a good start today i would like to talk about a few ways to improve our and high-powered he efforts. here are two key ideas. simplicity and standards. i think they would help with one big problem that we call the poverty trap. you see, it turns out the central planners aren't routed to the planning after all. washington tackles problems in a haphazard whack-a-mole approach in poverty is no exception. it's just the nature of the beast. so before lyndon johnson even became president we have social security and af d.c.. johnson had medicaid had starting job corps among others read soon after he left off as washington kept adding to the alphabet soup. the csfb, the sea ccd bg, the schip, the list goes on. jane sterling has done some

really interesting work on this topic. because the federal government created different programs to solve different programs at different times there is little to no coordination among them and because these programs are means tested, meaning families become an eligible for them as they make more money, poor families effectively face very high marginal tax rates. government actually discourages them from making more money. what does this mean? let's take a single mom with two kids living in colorado. if her income jumps from $10,000 to $45,000 she won't keep much of that extra $30,000. instead she will lose most of it to higher taxes and benefit cuts. according to sterling's calculations if she is enrolled in programs like food stamps medicaid and schip her implicit marginal tax rate will be as high as 55% and if she's enrolled in other programs like housing assistance and welfare,

the rate will reach about 80%. in other words, if you go to work you will keep less than 20 cents of every actual dollar you earn. i'm sure she's not going to walk around the calculator saying what is my implicit marginal tax rate but she gets it. she is trying to get ahead and her government is holding her back. this has to be addressed. the good news is there's a better way to do this. policymakers are working on solution that is all around simplicity. in 2012 written produced a far-reaching reform called the universal credit. the government is now putting this idea into practice and it is going through a rough patch. there are no two ways about that. maybe you have discussed that here today but the basic concept is very sound. we should learn from their experience. it took six means tested programs ranging from housing benefits incomes import and collapsed into one overall

payment. the old programs cut off abruptly when a family made a certain amount of money. on the other hand the universal credit tapers off gradually. we have experience with the sort of an idea ourselves. we have the earned income tax. the minimum wage make some more expensive for employers to hire low-skilled workers at the eitc on the other hand gives workers a boost without hurting their prospects. many in congress have found the eitc increases employment among low-skilled workers and like a universal credit it gives families more flexibility. it helps them take ownership of their lives. now there's certainly room for improvement. just last week my friend senator marco rubio proposed work is good assistance once a month instead of once a year so it's easier for them to plan ahead. that's an idea in my opinion that makes a lot of sense but whatever form assistance takes place, we have to encourage work in other words, there should be standards.

it's not a novel concept. in 1996 congress began to require people on welfare to work and welfare rolls, they dropped dramatically. child poverty fell by double digits. the problem is we have not applied this principle far enough. we need to do more. as ron likes to say what works is work and we need to change the way we think about work. it is not a penalty. it is the shortest surest route back into society. if you are working you are meeting people. you are learning new school -- skills. you are contributing to society. that's the best way to get a raise or you can get a better job. we want people back in the workforce so they can share their talents and their skills with the rest of us. we are losing loosing out just as much as they are. in short, the federal assistance

should not be a weigh station. it ought to be an on ramp, a quick drive back into the hustle and bustle of life. we have got a lot more work to do. we have to tackle a whole host of issues, education, criminal justice and criminal reform, health care. performers at the state and local level are our ready doing a lot of this hard work. the federal government should let them take the lead and learn from their example. i would like to think that anything i've said here is not very radical but you can hear the howls and protests from certain corners. all i would say to the critics who are criticizing new ideas and perhaps new thinking in a more effective war on poverty, all i would say is we want to hear their ideas to match. good intentions are not enough. concern for the poor, concern for the poor does not demand a commitment to the status quo. it demands a commitment to results.

we should not measure our success by how much we spend on welfare. we should measure our success by how many people we help get off of welfare. later this year i plan on staying a whole lot more about the subject but before i roll out any policy prescriptions for poor families i need to hear more from the real experts, the families themselves. if there's one thing i have learned after 15 years in congress it is that washington does not have all the answers varied in fact, sometimes they are right under our noses and out in the communities and not in the city. my mom used to tell me my son you have two years and one mouth, and use them in that proportion. sometimes in congress i lose light of that. those that care about the american experience need to heed that kind of advice. just as we need to run the numbers and study up on the issues we need to listen to the people we are trying to help as

they are the people on the frontlines. only the people in the community can solve the problems facing that community. and trust that is the bedrock of opportunity. and the federal government, it has to trust them with all the respect to all the brilliant minds here at workings and those lesser lights over on capitol hill we need all hands on deck. we need to enlist these poverty funders, the people they never come to washington. we need to enlist these community leaders and working families in and the real war on poverty. there is only one way to beat poverty and that is face-to-face. for too long, too many people have watched this effort from a distance. you know it's like this. they said to themselves i'm working hard and paying my taxes the government is going to take care of this and in so many ways the government has reinforced and encourage this view. that's not going to cut it anymore.

we need everyone to get in this game. we need everyone to get involved person-to-person community to community face to to community face-to-face and the truth is when you're helping people in need you you're helping yourself. so if we reintegrate the poor into our communities we will reinvigorate our community overall because the country with healthy growing families will have a healthy growing economy. we will all benefit from the economic and personal growth at its best. collaboration does not dispel the growing economy, it tilts character. it make sense better people. it will make us a better country so ron and they all i want to thank you for your invitation. i enjoy the conversation we are about the conversation we are back to house and i look forward to it and i think it's vital we make every single citizen every single one of them a full purchase a man in the american experiment. if we have a vibrant mantle of ideas on how best to achieve these outcomes we will get there and make this moment what it is. thank you very much. appreciate it. [applause]

>> thank you. interesting remarks. i'll bet a lot of people in the audience are reflecting on them and thinking about the questions they would like to ask you but i'm the one that gets asked the question. a lot of what you say has the ring of what in the old days used to be called compassionate conservatism. are you a compassionate conservative in what is a compassionate conservative? >> i don't like that term or the premise of it because it presumes conservatism itself is not compassionate. so i'm not a big fan of the term compassionate conservatism. i believe conservatism as i

understand it otherwise known as classical liberalism is the most compassionate because he respects the dignity of the individual. its goal and attempt is to help the most people have the best life and to reach their potential. we have to fight for better ideas to make sure we realize that. what is that to me? the condition of your birth is not determine the outcome of your life. that is what i was raised, growing up in a small-town irish catholic family from immigrants that came over from the potato famine. that's the american ideas understood it. my big fear you ballot and everybody around has document is so well and stewart over at heritage, we are starting to lose sight of that. we are losing not only mobility and we understand that that whole generations of americans don't know what this is. when you explain it or tell it to them they don't think it's for them. that's a problem and i do believe that conservatism is the

best answer for this. otherwise i wouldn't be who i am. >> i bet i know the answer to this next question but it will get a laugh anyway. i think it expresses what many on the left think about compassionate conservatism. tony blair said the only difference between compassionate conservatism and conservatism is that under compassionate conservatism, they tell you they are not going to help you but they are really sorry. [laughter] i'm going to guess wildly that you disagree with that. but this does show the left makes jokes about the sort of thing and i realize you don't like the term but many of the things you discuss are part and parcel of what most people think of as local working face-to-facn the place where they live, listening to them so forth. all of these used to come under the heading of compassionate conservatism so what do you say to people on the left saying that's not going to cut it? >> of those who are advocates of the status quo or who advocated for the status of where we are right now say just do more of

this, that doesn't cut it in and for those who say it could be worse, that is hardly an effective answer. so, what do we mean when we say conservatism? i truly believe that we have made a mistake in this war on poverty and unintended consequence mind you, that we have displaced community, that we have crowded out and pushed aside what is called civil society, and we have told people in this country that it's no longer the responsibility health care for others. that is not saying this is just a convenient excuse for cutting a program or stopping federal government's role and just saying it's up to people locally. i'm not trying to say that. what i'm trying to say is i think the left made the mistake in thinking this is all about material deprivation and what we ended up doing. we isolated people in our communities and we put up walls separating people from

integrating with each other. we need to tear down those walls. we need to look at how these programs are actually doing harm trapping people in poverty and how we can refocus on an agenda of upper mobility of turning the escalator back on and getting people back into life. now i always hesitate to say this because as a person in government it sounds preachy but you cannot ignore the culture. you have written all the stuff about marriage and about the breakdown of family. these things cannot be ignored but it is not somebody in washington who's going to solve that. that is our communities and that is our churches and everything but as conservatives working in government to make a difference we can remove a lot of barriers that are harming our culture. we can remove a lot of their ears that are slowing down income mobility that are harming economic growth and opportunity and those are the kinds of things i think we should focus on. that to me is what a proactive conservative solution would look

like. >> republicans are intent on making government smaller and this means they cut programs. many people see you as a hero because you have been a leader in this movement in trying to balance the budget and cut programs and we have indeed cut programs. is that a necessary part of your war on poverty and your attempts to help poor people to cut programs? >> it does nothing to do with the line of spreadsheet and it has nothing to do with what a number to be. it has everything to do with this is working or not an working meaning are people getting on with their lives and hitting their potential? are people getting the best chance to make the most of their life in this country and society i do believe that freedom, free enterprise brought forth by keeping government limited is the way to go, is the way to maximize that. that doesn't mean that we believe in no government. what that means is we believe in a government that is effective. we believe in a government that looks to its role and does that

very effectively. we are not doing that. we are biting off more than we can chew. we are presenting that we can replace these missing links in society that just can't be replaced by anything other than family. i look at this fight we have because i do believe we will lose the this century as an american century if we go down the path we are on. a dozen matter whether we are charles murray are bob putnam or any of these folks. we have a dangerous demographic trajectory in this country. the budget is part of that. the entitlement and debt explosion are part of that. the economy and slower economic growth are a big part of that but the greatest casualty of this dangerous trajectory are the least among us, the poor who are being trapped in poverty. so i really believe we need to take a look at this and when we apply our principles, liberty, freedom free enterprise helped determination subsidiary is a term people might think to use, along with cert --

solidarity of community you can have a rich, vibrant mosaic of a society where people can really may come most of their lives where we can get back to those days of upward mobility where people come to this country were born in this country and say i can make it. i can do it. i can be who i want to be. we can get there if we really compete for these outcomes. if we measure all of this stuff i am much money we throw at it and what the spreadsheet looks at -- like and, in the dollars you can put into it we'll miss the market if we measure based on outcome and results than i feel like we can make a difference. >> so let's assume you're right. and that the real problem is government and too many programs and removing too much authority and responsibility from local levels and churches and so forth can you actually foresee that you could convince some of the people in this audience and the people in the media and voters of wisconsin and the rest of the country especially states like

new york and california that is true and government is really in the way and if you balance the budget and cut spending and have these community issues you are talking about that it will be a better result coax can you convince them of that? >> why would i be doing this if i didn't believe that? i mean honestly. >> some people call it a heroic act and they know they probably can't convince people that you know you're right and you're going to try this. >> look, friend of mine once said you don't want to be sitting on your front porch in your rocking chair with your grandkid on your knees saying, you know what granddaughter i want you to know when america went to hell in a handbasket i voted no every step of the way. i do believe that a majority of americans understand that what is going on today is not working. our society is fraying at the seams, that we have to do something different, that the

status quo isn't working and i think new ideas based on these ideals that were the founding principles of our country that made it so special and great in the first place, i really do believe a majority of americans can warm to this, agree to this, embrace this. if i didn't believe that's why would i be doing this? what is the point? so, do i believe that the principles of welfare reform which were majority area and principles in 1976 can be that way again? the results were very effective. do i believe americans want able-bodied people to have a better chance at a better life and do i think americans want a safety net that is effective in their for the truly indigent people in need? yes and conservatives believe that too. i think what happens in these debates is we just caricature eyes each other. we just lump one caricature as this is a liberal that cares nothing about taking power from

people and debt and deficits or a conservatives who is heartless and doesn't care who just wants to help the rich and wants no government. do you know what? it's probably some our way in the middle between those two spheres. i think if we just rely on these caricatures we will just do this the whole time. we will just smash against each other but if we actually have an adult conversation about how to restore economic mobility, a conversation about a culture which is inherently nongovernment i think it's pretty important and i think we can make a difference and i do believe the majority of americans still believe in the american dream and the american idea and if they knew they could do something to make a difference in their communities and help advance it, they will do it and i do believe this can be done. yes i do. >> okay so i'm going to end by inviting you back to brookings when you get ready to say exactly what your agenda is going to be as you promised during the speech. i hope you'll come back later and tell a big audience, a

bigger audience to hear the specifics. >> after heritage, right? >> no, no before heritage. thank you so much for coming and please join me in thanking chairman ryan. [applause] >> thanks. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> thank you bell for your leadership and for hosting today's foreign. i think this will be a very interesting conversation that frankly the american people are having at every kitchen table today. i want to thank the brookings institute for being, for bringing us all together to talk about a topic that is really vital to the future of this country and to talk about some fresh ideas to give more children and working families basically the opportunity they need to achieve their potential. last week marked the 50th anniversary of president lyndon johnson's declaration of an all-out war against poverty. ushering in a new era of commitment to security and opportunity for every single american. no matter their circumstances that they were born into or whatever kind of hand that life

dealt you. the same week we marked the milestone of american history, the senate and the house had a chance to do one simple act to live up to that promise by extending a lifeline to 1.3 million jobless americans. 1.3 million americans who through no fault of their own, who want to work, who need to work and are diligently looking for work, they were denied this lifeline, this basic lifeline that keeps them afloat during tough economic times. for no reason but politics. democrats and republicans may well have honest disagreements on the best way to grow our economy and create jobs, for all those americans who are ready and willing to work. that we should be able to agree on a basic principle. we should stand by those who are struggling and never leave

anyone out in the cold. but all too often this is exactly what happens here in washington for reasons most would find inexcusable. it's the same old political gams sabott gnashed better known as food stamps which the house of representatives would like to cut $40 billion over 10 years. they would have us all believe that they are just cutting waste, cutting fraud, abuse and being free rides on the taxpayer dime but the reality is when you are cutting food stamps you are just taking food off the table of families in this country. taking food out of the mouths of hungry children, taking food away from seniors who are honest fixed income, from veterans who gave their lives for this country and everything for this country who are in a time of need. that is actually who you are

taking food away from. and it makes me angry because i'll be here about, from the other side, is that those on government assistance are somehow scamming the system or a lazy. i've never met a lazy child who is hungry, have you? i have never met one man or woman who was on unemployment benefits or who needs food stamps who wants to be there. they don't want to be there. they would prefer to be working, providing for their children, feeding their children. i have never met a mother whose children are well fed who is on food stamps. and on top of this economic hardship, a lot of these families, it's a loss of confidence, it's a loss of dignity and that is all the motivation they need to work as hard as they can to find a new

job and to regain that stability that their family so desperately needs. that is what the 1.3 million americans are fighting for, a job, an opportunity to work. this assistance is meant for them as their safety net. so when politicians callously attack those receiving government assistance, they are not attacking the nameless and faceless. they are attacking our kids, our seniors, are veterans who have given so much. i think we need to do much better. it's not who we are as americans we are all in this together and we have to create the federal policies that reflect those core values. now i know we will hear a lot of politicians finding a new sense of compassion and empathy over the weeks and months ahead, but when you look at their policies

they fall short of those words. we see policies that. off cutting food assistance to families that need it, to protect billions of dollars in profits for insurance companies that don't need those guaranteed profits. if you look at the policies they will gut head start. there is not apparent in america who doesn't know that early childhood education is the difference between their child reaching their full god-given potential and not. you will see policies that are designed to cut medicaid. what is medicaid? its access to health care for those who need it the most. simply put, these are not the priority of a nation that fulfills its moral obligation to those who need help. these aren't the policies of the nation that does what we can to support americans who have fallen on hard times.

children and families who are hurting and hungry need more than a slogan so we should at least agree on this. let's do more than just find the right way to talk about it. let's actually look at democrats and republicans for policies that focus on her core shared values and protect those who are struggling to make ends meet. now i have traveled across my state of new york and the stories of struggle actually haven't stopped. parents are working their hardest to get by to provide for their kids but the reality is that things seem to be working against them. for as far as we have, and for all those who have been lifted up since lbj took poverty had on, the fact is income inequality today is at record level. college affordability is slipping away. seniors are working longer hours for less money and contrary to basic american value that we

reward work in this country, the real value of workers wages is on the decline. as a result families are having a tough time. but all along, the american dream hasn't changed. we still all as americans dream of getting an education, providing for our families, raising our kids, paying for college and making sure we have money for retirement. but the rules of earning the american dream have changed. the skills and tools that all that guaranteed her parents and grandparents a place in the middle class won't cut it today. the world has changed and our economy has changed. and most importantly the american family and the face of the american workforce has changed significantly. and that is where i see the greatest potential for reviving a middle class, an opportunity

for all those who're fighting to make it there. the new faces of our workforce over the last four decades are not women. in fact, women are increasingly the new family breadwinner. women are the primary wage earners for a growing share of homes across america. in 1960, only 11% of families, the female, the mother was relied on for her wages to -- the kids. today that is 40%. 40% of wage earners in america are mothers who are the primary wage earners to provide for their kids. 40% of the families with children under 18 relied only on the mother to pay the bills. to make those tough choices at the kitchen table and to feed their kids but you wouldn't know that by looking at america's workplace policies today. they are fundamentally stuck in the past. congress and state capitols across the country simply have

failed to keep pace with the new economy and the modern american workplace. the key to creating a growing economy and the key to an american middle-class that is built to thrive in the 21st century is women. without a doubt if given a fair shot, women will be the ones who will ignite this economy and lead america to her arrival of its middle-class. that is what i want to focus on today. it's called the american opportunity agenda. it's a set of five basic and suppose that will modernize the american work place with policies that empower women and families and give them the chance to earn their way and get ahead into the economy and achieve their full potential, and basically reflect the values of our nation. first rebuilding our american middle-class relies on keeping every woman who wants to be in the workplace and the workplace earning a paycheck. now this is a situation that many in this room may well have faced. for anyone who has ever had a

new baby or a sick family member or a dying mother or father who needs care around-the-clock, you know what that feeling is like when you have to make a choice between providing for your family and staying in the work place or caring for your loved one at home. choosing between your loved one and your career is a choice that no person should ever have to make. but this is a choice that is happening every single day and more often than not, it's the woman who will choose to leave the workforce to care for that family member. when they do, they will earn less income. they will miss out on raises and promotions and they will lose out on retirement benefits. this can set women behind. it risks their future success and at risk the stability of their own families and it can also hurt businesses. today's lack of paid family medical leave keeps

highly-skilled best trained artist workers out of the workforce. democratdemocrat s and republicans should be able to agree, america's strongest asset is her people. we should change our policies to reflect that and give working parents a fair shot. the family and medical leave act we have today basically provides for unpaid leave, job protected lead -- leave for serious offense but only half of our workforce qualifies for unpaid leave and many more given that opportunity can afford to take time off. congress can and should do much more to support these workers and strengthen our economy by expanding paid family medical leave. under my bill called the family act we would create a self-funded paid family medical leave insurance program. doesn't add one dime to the deficit. based on successful state

models, it works by establishing independent trust fund supported by the oath the employee and the employer, contributions of the small amount in their wages. it's basically an earned benefit that would make paid leave available to every working american no matter how did your company is that you work for, a big is this our small business, whether you are part time or whether you're full-time. the cost is about the cost of a cup of coffee a week. when a young parent needs to care for newborn it shouldn't come down to outdated policies that lets her boss decide how much time she can take off, how much time it will take her to get back on her feet. with that decision perhaps affecting the fate of a retirement career. when anyone of us man or woman needs time to care for an ill or dying family member you shouldn't have to sacrifice our job and risk their future to do what we think is right. the family medical leave act

first past the strong bipartisan support so there's no reason why democrats and republicans can't come together and to hoard it again today. let me give you one real-life example to show why this is something we should all be able to support. for those who desperately want to reduce the roles of those on government assistance this is a really great way to do it. i have an employee. she is a single mom. she was working as a waitress. she was working 40 hours a week earning $2.19 an hour plus tips. she basically was able to bring home about $700 a week or about $24,000 a year. that's a few thousand dollars above the poverty line. when she got regnant she had no health care benefits by her employer so she enrolled in medicaid. when she was about to have her baby she knew she could not afford the hospital bill to deliver her baby so she had to quit her job. because she was able to be on medicaid that covered her hospital expenses but because

her employer gave her no sick days no vacation days and no paid leave she wasn't able to have time with her infant at home so she had to quit her job and she enrolled in the back so she would have enough money in enrolled in food stamps. this was a woman who was working full-time, 40 hours a week basically on edge of poverty and couldn't provide for her kids. if she had paid family medical leave in that job she could have stayed in her job, have the time she needed and have the benefit that would have protected her and her family. we also have to work on things as simple as raising the minimum wage. when we are talking about low-wage workers most people don't understand not only the problems with minimum h. workers but also how hard-hit they are. did you know all minimum wage earners 64% of them are women and did you know that if you are working 40 hours a week on minimum wage you are earning

$15,000 a year. if you are a family of three, that is $3000 below the poverty line. so we are saying in a country that has always said we reward work and if you work hard every day you will make it to the middle class, but that is not true because if you are working 40 hours a week and minimum wage you are basic the earning $290 a week. imagine what would be like to live on $290 a week today here in washington d.c.. i have an example for you. her name is priscilla rivera's and she works at union station. she has been working as a janitor at union station for 20 years. she has never had a sick day. she has never had a vacation day. she has no benefits. she has been working the same job for 20 years and still earning $8.75 an hour with no benefits. doesn't sound right. she's about to retire and she doesn't know how she's going to retire because earning so little she has been able to save very

little. hard-working people are not looking for a handout. they just want to work hard every day and be able to provide for their family and to have some hope some glimmer that they too will be able to see the american dream. under the bill we are working on the senate it would give lucella arrays. she would get $10.10 an hour and it would bring her income. she is one step closer to getting out of poverty and moving into the middle class. raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour helped 33 million americans, 17 million women, men and women with children just like lucella. millions of mothers immediately would be able to do more to support their families and put that money right back into the economy. raising the minimum wage is also good for business. an increase raises our gdp by $33 billion over the course of just three years with increased earnings. which means increased spending

on household goods, on food, on clothing and things families needs. with that added activity our economy could create up to 140,000 new jobs. the next issue that i feel very passionate about that i think will make the egg deal of difference for working moms is basically understanding the need for affordable childcare. today more women are going back to work sooner after having a child creating much greater demand for affordable childcare that allows them to stay in her job. the cost of childcare is about $6700 each year and much more for an infant. just about the same amount as an average family spends on groceries. if you can afford childcare, as many middle class families candidate don't have a family option the choice you are left with is to leave your job and stay at home and care for your children. if you just think about the numbers again, let's say the

average infant is about $10,000 a year. you're our minimum-wage earner and you earn $15,000 a year. how were you going to afford childcare? >> to my young friends out there, life can be great but not when you can't see it. open your eyes to life and see the colors that god gave us as a precious gift to his children to enjoy life to the fullest. ..

>> we will take a look at the challenges communications will face in 2014. we have our panel here from the daily, the hill, and the manager of bloomburg is here. what is on the fcc agenda this year? >> to start off, the fcc in 2014 and beyond will be focused on